I 



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Class - , ":>-■-. 
Book. • > 
Copyright^? /\' " 

C0FXRIGHT DEPOSm 




Edwin Checkley 



CHECKLEVS 

NATURAL METHOD 

of 

Physical Training 



MAKING MUSCLE AND REDUCING 

FLESH WITHOUT DIETING 

OR APPARATUS 



BY EDWIN CHECKLEY 



WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 
BY H. D. EGGLESTON 



PHILADELPHIA. PA. 

THE CHECKLEY BUREAU 

1921 



^-\ 






lA 



Copyright 192/ 
By EDWIN L. CHECKLEY. Jr. 



Ji\U-5'22 



©C1.A653421 
•*vvo 4 



EDWIN CHECKLEY--AN APPRECIATION 

VTO MAN ever was a better exemplification 
^ ^ of the value of his own teaching than 
Edwin Checkley. 

Dying of an accident at the age of 75, the 
resident physician in the hospital that treated him, 
denied that he could possibly be that age. "His 
body is that of a vigorous man of fifty" was the 
verdict of this doctor. Not knowing Checkley's 
history and life-work he was unable to under- 
stand how a man nearing eighty could be pos- 
sessed of such a wondrous physique and such 
terrific strength. 

The writer had an interview with Mr. 
Checkley a few days before his death. 

After suffering from a fatal dose of gas pois- 
oning which had overcome even his wonderful 
lungs, his physique was as impressive as at any 
time in the last 30 years. 

Particularly noticeable was his marvelous 
chest, which sprang forward from the base of 
the neck in a swelling curve. Checkley had the 



AN APPRECIATION. 

highest arched chest I have ever seen in any 
human being. He ascribed this to his habit of 
what he termed "costal breathing" ; that is breath- 
ing with the upper part of his lungs as con- 
trasted to the usual abdominal breathing. 

The picture facing the Title Page was taken 
when Checkley was 45 years old, and except for 
the graying hair it would have been a good pic- 
ture of him at 75. Possibly he was a trifle more 
rounded ; he may have accumulated 5 or 6 pounds 
more flesh; but there was no wasting of tissues, 
no bowing of the shoulders or bending of that 
flat back; his head was carried as proudly as 
ever on that round columnar neck, and his step 
was as springy and his bodily carriage as buoy- 
ant as at any time since he brought himself to 
his prime. 

To me, the most interesting points of 
Checkley's physical equipment were his lungs and 
his back. I have seen him box, wrestle, run, 
jump for protracted periods. I have seen him 
lift and carry hundreds of pounds of live and 
dead weight, but never once have I seen him pant 
for breath. At his lectures, I have seen him 
demonstrate the capabilities of some muscle 

ii 



AN APPRECIATION. 

groups by performing feats of strength beyond 
the power of most professional strong men, and 
a second later resume his talk without the 
slightest catch in his breath. 

I fully believe that he could have made a 
fortune as a "strong man," but such work did 
not interest him. He abhorred heavy Dumb 
Bells and I never knew him to touch them but 
once ; on that occasion he closed an argument with 
a teacher of heavy-lifting by raising weights that 
the dumb-bell devotee could not begin to handle, 
and this without any claim to special knowledge 
of the technique or tricks of the lifter's art. 

Checkley's knowledge of anatomy was so 
comprehensive, his control over his muscles so 
great, and his ability to call a great number of 
muscles into simultaneous action so uncanny, that 
it was hardly fair to compare him with the 
ordinary athlete. 

To illustrate: On pages 65 and 66 of this 
book, he speaks of the muscles which control the 
shoulder. He lays no especial emphasis on this 
part of his teachings, but with Checkley that 
does not mean that the rules he laid down are 

unimportant. He was apt, both in speech and 

••• 
in 



AN APPRECIATION. 

writing, to propound a revolutionary principle in 
the most casual way. 

I recall one lecture (at the Franklin Institute 
in Philadelphia) when he devoted an unusual 
amount of time to these muscles which control 
the shoulders. To show their great power when 
properly developed, he gave two practical demon- 
strations. First: Lying flat on his back he al- 
lowed a 200-pound man to stand on each of his 
shoulders ; then, while keeping his head and spine 
in contact with the floor, he shrugged his 
shoulders forward, raising both men several 
inches in the air. Second: having shown that 
the muscles which move the shoulders forward 
were capable of moving against 400 pounds re- 
sistance, he then gave a most interesting proof 
of the equal power of the muscles which spread 
the shoulders apart. 

Across the back of his neck he held a short 
chain capable of sustaining 500 pounds. Turn- 
ing his back to the audience, he showed how the 
average athlete would attempt to break the chain 
by tugging violently on each end of the chain, 
but using only the strength of his arms. He 
confessed that he was unable to break the chain 

iv 



AN APPRECIATION. 

in this way, but called upon us to notice the 
difference when he used the upper-back muscles 
which control the shoulders. He squeezed his 
shoulder blades together (that is toward the 
spine) and took a firm grip on each end of the 
chain; then without disturbing the position of 
his arms, he slowly spread his shoulders and the 
chain parted. 

An examination of Checkley's picture shows 
that his arms were not abnormally large but that 
his shoulder muscles were much larger than those 
of the average athlete. 

His back was flat, his chest round as a barrel, 
his hips broad and his legs very sturdy. Only 
once in the whole book does Checkley allude to 
his own strength and that is when he says "I 
can lift three men each weighing 150 pounds 
and trot with them for a hundred yards." 

Such a feat was not as difficult to him as 
running a block unencumbered would be to most 
men of his age. 

He had little toleration for strength feats as 
such, and he only performed such feats as proof 
of the capabilities of the well developed body. 
He was, however, intensely interested in the 

Y 



AN APPRECIATION. 

mechanics of muscular movement and the advan- 
tages to be obtained by certain leverages. 

His views on muscular development were 
different from those of most physical culturists. 
Few men have had his ability to build up the 
external muscles, but he claimed that such de- 
velopment was harmful unless the vital organs 
were correspondingly vigorous. 

* Overtaxing the heart, lungs, kidneys or other 
organs was to be avoided, "for," he said, "power 
comes from within, and you must be careful not 
to overload your motor." 

At the age of 70 he remarked that he could 
still outdo and outlast any man he had so far 
met because he had never forced himself to his 
limit, nor attempted anything beyond his strength, 
"If I attempted a feat and it seemed to require 
an inordinate exertion, I stopped, and never al- 
lowed my pride or vanity to lead me into excess ; 
these fellows who tug and strain until their eyes 
pop out, will pay for it later." 

* He firmly believed that everyone ought to be 
strong, but that muscular strength was secondary 
to vital strength, and that the only really lasting 
muscular strength came from inward health. 

vi 



AN APPRECIATION. 

He insisted on flexibility, and by that he meant 
not only suppleness of muscles but also flexibility 
of the rib-box, and an easy working of all the 
joints. 

He claimed that at seventy he had all the 
vital and muscular vigor that he possessed at 
seventeen. Certainly he could stoop, bend and 
twist himself with as little effort as a small boy 
displays in tumbling around. 

After developing himself according to hi9 
own ideas, he started teaching at about the age 
of 35. His success was immediate. The first 
edition of this book brought forth a chorus of 
praise from the medical fraternity and press. 
Since that time many of his ideas have been 
adopted by a number of other Physical Culture 
teachers. 

As in the case of all great pioneers and 
teachers, few of his imitators (or disciples) have 
equaled him in ability. You could imitate 
Checkley, you could copy him, but you could not 
originate as he could, unless you had his knowl- 
edge of anatomy and physiology, together with 
his creative originality. 

Julian Hawthorn, writing of exercise, quoted 
vii 



AN APPRECIATION. 

Checkley as saying that one must exercise all the 
time, which was merely Checkley's way of saying, 
that, given proper knowledge, every movement 
made during the day could be converted into an 
upbuilding exercise rather than an exhausting 
labor. 

Necessarily he had to perform a certain num- 
ber of movements while instructing his pupils; 
outside of that he never took exercise, depending 
entirely on his method of standing and walking, 
and the ordinary exertions of the day to keep 
him in his perfect state of health and vigor. 

"If you stand and move properly, which 
means that you use your muscles properly, you 
keep your internal machinery oiled." 

Imagine, if you can, a physical instructor who 
never invited one to feel his muscles, and who 
considered that the rebuilding of a single pupil 
was far more important than his own phenom- 
enal feats of strength, and, who, furthermore, 
valued his own wonderful physical prowess and 
well-being principally as a proof of the correct- 
ness of his theories. 

Elbert Hubbard, writing of Macaulay, said, 
"Carry the crown of your head high and men 

viii 



AN APPRECIATION. 

will believe in you." He could have said this 
with equal truth of Edwin Checkley. His spirit 
and example were contagious. One of his pupils 
told me, that many a time after he had had a 
hard worrisome day at the desk, he would walk 
home with Checkley — "I tell you," said this man, 
"Checkley was the most inspiring human being 
I have ever known. No matter how tired and 
fagged out I was, after a few blocks stepping 
alongside of Checkley he had me feeling as 
though I was walking on air. If you followed 
his example you could not help feeling rejuve- 
nated." 

I know several of Checkley's pupils who 
credit him with having saved their lives; but the 
best tribute paid to Checkley's ability was by an 
elderly gentleman who said : 

"I heard Checkley lecture once, and I was 
so convinced by his argument regarding breath- 
ing, that never since that time have I gone a 
day without practicing his methods of breathing. 
It took me some time before I mastered his 
'costal breathing,' but in the 25 years since then, 
I have enjoyed the best of health, and old as I 
am, I can walk for miles without fatigue, and 

ix 



AN APPRECIATION. 

can skip up three flights of stairs with the best 
of them. I think that as a general rule, there is 
no crank like a physical culture crank, but 
Checkley was different. Probably I liked him 
because he proved to me that I could attain 
vigorous health without the laborious calisthenics 
that I so despise." 

Checkley was fifty years ahead of his time. 
Since the publication of the first edition of this 
book, there have been breathing systems, systems 
which specialize on the spine, and "no apparatus" 
systems, most of which are an outgrowth of this 
man's work. 

Checkley had the artistic temperament. He 
cared intensely for the technical side of his pro- 
fession but little for the business side. He treated 
all cases individually, instead of in classes, and 
a great deal of his time was occupied in handling 
curative cases for physicians of his acquaintance. 

Checkley was a great reader. He literally 
devoured every book he could obtain that dealt 
with anatomy and hygiene. He was the intimate 
friend of many physicians and his great pleasure 
was to engage in arguments and discussions with 
these doctors. No professional man ever went 

x 



AN APPRECIATION. 

further than Checkley, in keeping abreast with 
the best thought in his chosen profession. 

After his death a number of manuscripts 
were found which have been incorporated in this 
volume in Chapters XIII-XIV. That these 
chapters are somewhat disjointed is accounted 
for by the fact that the manuscripts were written 
at different dates. 

A Grateful Pupil. 



xi 



NOTE TO THE REVISED EDITION. 

THE immediate success of "A Natural Method of 
Physical Training " has more than one explana- 
tion, but it is doubtless true that the chief cause of the 
book's popularity has been its effort to present a "natural" 
method of giving vigor to the body without calling in 
the artificial aids of apparatus or harsh systems of 
dieting. Every system of training — the word is used 
here and elsewhere in the book in its broader meaning 
and not to signify athletics — that is dependent upon 
apparatus is necessarily a spasmodic training. Men and 
women cannot carry such training about with them. 
If they travel, or are greatly occupied in something that 
keeps them away from the gymnastic machinery, their 
training is suspended. The system set forth in this 
book has attempted to show that the only direct method 
of keeping the body vigorous is by correcting artificial 
restraint, carrying the body correctly, breathing correctly, 
and otherwise following a logical system of giving the 
muscles and organs free and natural play, and opportu- 
nity to develop symmetry and strength. 

The author has had every reason to be gratified at 
the indorsements which have been offered by those who 
have devoted themselves to the science of athletic train- 



ing, the more as his system radically attacks the older 
system of college and gymnasium athletics. The 
author's argument, for instance, that hard muscles are a 
danger and not an advantage, has begun to receive 
support from practical and distinguished exponents of 
the science of muscular development. 

The author has been especially gratified at the 
cordiality of the medical press and profession, which 
have been all but unanimous in praise of his system as 
outlined in the present treatise. Here again the indorse- 
ment is peculiarily welcome, from the fact that the book 
might be considered to take an attitude of radical inde- 
pendence toward the medical profession. The truth is 
that the anthor has urged his theories in no disrespect 
to healing science, and is proud to have received such 
substantial support from physicians of every school. 

A writer may consider himself fortunate when, in a 
revised and extended edition, he finds himself under no 
necessity for material modification in any of his chapters. 
In extending this book the writer has aimed to make 
some points more clear, and to enlarge in a general way 
the usefulness of the volume. 



PREFACE. 

PHYSICAL training is "in the air," but the 
observer of current events is able to 
discover in reports from the athletic world that 
there is something wrong about most modern 
methods of training. Muscle-molding schemes 
that make men die in middle life may be pic- 
torially interesting and may sound heroic, but 
they are not for that wise average mortal who 
wishes simply to feel light and strong and, if 
need be, find himself ready to safely enter on 
any reasonable physical undertaking. The 
author of this book believes that there is more 
"straining" than "training" in a good many 
popular systems practiced in and out of the 
college gymnasium, and the method he him- 
self advocates perhaps radically departs from 
familiar systems. Yet this method seems to 
the author so fully indorsed by nature and by 
results that he might, if not lor the appearance 
of egotism, have called this book " The Natural 



4 PREFACE, 

Method of Physical Training," instead of using 
the indefinite "-<4." In the pages that follow 
an effort has been made to outline a plan of 
conduct for bodily development that is not 
dependent on any appliances whatever, that 
will build up the frame of the slender and 
reduce the unwelcome proportions of the cor- 
pulent without the employment of machinery 
or harsh and weakening methods of dieting. 

The author fears that he may not always 
have been able to connect in each chapter all 
that he had to say upon each point covered, 
and thus feels that those who wish to follow 
the system from these pages should carefully 
read the whole book, observing the emphasis 
upon seemingly minor matters. £. C 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

1. The Bugbear of Training 7 

II. How to Carry the Body 17 

III. How to Breathe 31 

IV. Muscles and What They Do 45 

V. The Joints and Their Development 57 

VI. Exercises for Muscles and Joints 71 

VII. The Treatment of Obesity 85 

VIII. Training for Women 101 

IX. A Word About Children 113 

X. Some General Hints 123 

APPENDIX 

XI. A Word About the Spine..., 155 

XII. More About Breathing 167 

XIII. Force of Habit 175 

XIV. On Retaining Youth 197 



The Checkley System. 



tiiiisimitmuiiiiitimiitmt 



I. 

THE BUGBEAR OF TRAINING. 

THERE are two points which writers and 
talkers about physical training are almost 
always ready to bring forward when discussion 
arises as to the present status of our race — they 
tell us to look at the ancient Greeks and at the 
animal kingdom. They tell us the ancient 
Greeks attained certain proficiencies in the 
field of athletics, and developed a remarkably 
perfect physique, which the artists delighted to 
reproduce. They show us the muscular perfec- 
tion of brute creatures, their general health and 
comfortable relations with life. 

These points are in the main well raised. 
The example of the Greeks was in all respects 
one toward which the attention of modern peo- 



8 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

* 

pies may always profitably be turned. The 
Panhellenic games were an inspiration to the 
rising generation. They made physical vigor 
fashionable. And they were not merely an 
isolated incident in the life of the Greeks. 
These Panhellenic games were simply the 
flowering of a superb system of training — 
superb so far as it related to the work to 
be done in those tremendous conflicts of 
the arena. Physicians and law makers 
alike realized the importance of athletic exer- 
cise. Lycurgus scattered free training schools, 
and his successors followed up, in one way or 
another, the example set by this remarkable 
governor. The people paid extraordinary 
honor to the athletic heroes. A man who won 
more than one prize at the same Olympiad was 
modeled in marble by the best sculptor of his 
state. We are reminded of our own times in 
the accounts which tell of the large fortunes 
made by those who achieved some especial 
glory at the games. 

But the conditions of life among the ancient 
Greeks were wholly different from the condi- 
tions of life with which modern men and women 



THE BUGBEAR OF TRAINING. 9 

are struggling. The athleticism of the old 
Grecian race was cultivated under very favor- 
able circumstances. The Grecians not only 
led a more outdoor life than our northern 
races, but their mode of living, in respect to 
public and private festivals, entertaiments and 
social movements, made the development of 
the physical man much easier than it can ever 
be with us. These differences do not make it 
less proper for us to look to the Greeks, but we 
should remember the necessities arising out of 
these differences. It is for us to study out the 
compromise which must be made. Properly 
made, this compromise will represent a new 
and sufficient ideal. 

It will pay to remember that there has been 
a good deal of exaggeration in stories of Greek 
prowess. Undoubtedly we are in possession of 
some fairly accurate figures concerning the 
feats of the old athletes, but there are many 
absurdly false estimates of the early running, 
jumping and throwing. The Panhellenic games 
brought forward men who had been in training 
for great periods for special feats. The honors 
awarded were so great that no amount of train* 



10 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

ing and exertion were considered too consider- 
able. Given the same training our modern 
athletes would greatly surpass the Greek rec- 
ords. If the modern horse is quicker than the 
ancient, the modern man is quicker also. Our 
all-round athletes would, I am sure, have as- 
tonished an audience at an Olmypiad. And as 
for the matter of physique, there has been equal- 
ly great exaggeration on that side. Plato tells 
us that the sculptors took considerable liberty 
in departing from the actual form of the model. 
Everything points to a relative inferiority in 
the ancient races ; yes, even in the worshiped 
Greeks. No one should doubt that the world 
is producing men of finer form than it has 
hitherto produced, and that it will continue to 
do so. 

If we consider the other allusion to the 
brute creation we shall find many things to 
rebuke and instruct us, but many things also 
that indicate the possibility of exaggerating the 
relative physical superiority of the beasts. Man 
is physically the most magnificent of all ani- 
mals. His muscular system excels in versa- 
tility that of any other creature. He can stand 



THE BUGBEAR OF TRAINING. II 

variations in temperature, in forms of covering, 
in kinds of occupation that are impossible to 
the lower animals. Considering the things he 
is in the habit of eating, and the other trials he 
places upon his system, we can only marvel at 
the splendid manner in which he is proving his 
physical superiority to all his other neighbors 
on this planet. 

The significant thing in connection with 
brute creatures is that they do not have ath- 
letics. The lion keeps his marvelous strength 
without extraordinary effort. And so with other 
beasts. Their natural habits keep them in con- 
dition, and sometimes their natural habits do 
not seem to fully explain why they are so 
strong and so healthy. As a matter of fact, 
beasts are not, of course, always so strong as 
they would be under training, but by not train- 
ing they escape other difficulties, of which I will 
speak a little later on. If we are to take any 
special lesson from the lower animals, it must 
be that the best strength is that produced under 
natural habits. 

This brings me to that bugbear of " train- 
ing," To a certain number of people athletic 



12 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

or special physical training is agreeable. In 
fact, few who enter it find any kind of training 
without some exhilaration. But the proportion 
of people who do any training at all is very 
small, while the number who might, if the pro- 
posed training did not come in the guise of 
hardship, is unquestionably considerable. The 
course of exercises prescribed to many an ambi- 
tious victim of physical weakness is altogether 
too heroic, and even those who are fairly strong, 
and who would like to develop and maintain 
their strength, are frightened off by the systems 
put forward as necessary. Elaborate apparatus 
is one of the symptoms of an elaborate system. 
The little fellow who went a-fishing was cer- 
tain he could catch bigger fish the further he 
went away from home, and the designers of 
health lifts and chest expanders, boxing ma- 
chines and rowing appliances seem to feel that 
the glitter and elaboration of their machinery 
will tempt and benefit the purchaser in pro- 
portion to their size — and complexity. 

It is undoubtedly a fact that certain artistic 
formulas for training have a fascination at the 
outset Their ingenuity seems to promise an 



THE BUGBEAR OF TRAINING. 13 

opening of the mysterious roao to health. The 
novelty itself is something to count upon. And 
machinery has a certain charm while it is new. 
You pull this and push that so many times a 
day and you get to be a little amateur Sam- 
son. You already feel the muscles expanding. 
Those biceps especially draw attention, as if 
they were the synonym of health and strength. 
But the mystery vanishes after a while and 
something or other is always interfering with 
that half hour at the machine. It is put off for 
a day, for two days, for a week. Interest grad- 
ually evaporates and the biceps are allowed to 
go to the bad again. The illusion disappears 
and is gone. 

And then the corpulent subject is attacked 
with that terrible legend — "Diet." Leave off 
eating so and so, is the order, and your paunch 
will gradually and beautifully disappear. The 
so and so, of course, is always exactly what the 
corpulent subject most enjoys. - But the worst 
of it all is that, in spite of obedience, after a 
terrible struggle, to the awful ordeal, after the 
discomfort and weakness of implicit reliance on 
a certain system of eating, there is only a loss 



14 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

of a few pounds out of many and no material 
change in the general form or condition. At 
the first halt in the rigid dietary discipline there 
is complete relapse in flesh. 

These ordeals bring " training" into very 
bad repute. Sometimes they do actual injury. 
The youth who enters the gymnasium at col- 
lege, starts out on a career of violent training — 
general as well as special — finds himself exhila- 
rated for a time. His special strength increases, 
but his false start on the great material lines 
tells against him in after years, when a little 
weakness around the heart and a sudden light- 
ness in the head tell a story of bad beginnings 
and false discipline. 

There is something radically wrong in these 
harsh and extravagant methods of training. 
The average man does not care to be an athlete 
in the accepted sense. If he has means to 
squander in appliances he does not have the 
opportunity to use them as directed, and the 
most slavish adherence to the rules somehow 
does not have the expected effect. The lifting 
and striking power may be gradually increased 
and the chest expansion slightly improved, so 



THE BUGBEAR OF TRAINING. 1 5 

far as measurement goes, but there is something 
wanting. Anything that interferes with the 
galley-slave labor at the apparatus sets back 
work. The strength of the man so " trained " 
has no reliance on itself. It is superficial — only 
skin deep, as it were. The training will not 
" stay put" 

The truth is that there can be no proper 
training that does not educate the whole sys- 
tem of the man. The muscular system of a 
man is not made up of chest and biceps. It is 
a wonderful and complex organization in which 
one part is intimately related with the other, 
and if the system as a whole is not kept in 
mind the building up of the arms will not in- 
crease the permanent strength or permanent 
health. Men become proficient at punching a 
sand bag who do not know how to simply 
carry their own body. They have spent their 
time in training, as it were, from the outside. 
One of our modern philosophers has said that 
we invent fine railroads, but we are forgetting 
how to walk. This is very true. We are for- 
getting how to stand, and, above all — fatal 
error ! — we are forgetting how to breathe. 



16 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

There are what are known as " conversa- 
tional methods " of learning languages. I sup- 
pose these are very good methods. They are 
supposed to lead the student into a language 
without first learning the grammatical rule* 
In athletic training of the simplest kind there 
can be no profitable way of skulking around the 
first principles. We must breathe properly or 
forfeit all chance of ever becoming really strong, 
of having the kind of strength that wears well. 
We must stand properly if we wish to give the 
body and its muscles a chance to become what 
we wish them to become and what they must 
become to be at their best. The kind of train- 
ing that starts in to load certain parts of the 
body with hard muscles, overlooking the simple 
elements of general strength, is an error that 
sometimes proves more than a harmless mis- 
take. 

In the chapters which follow I shall try, 
without elaboration, to outline the general 
principles of the muscular machinery and my 
system of developing that machinery into com- 
fortable and healthful perfection. 



HOW TO CARRY THE BODY, 1/ 



n. 

HOW TO CARRY THE BODY. 

^OES it, then, need to be told how the body 
*^ must be carried ? Most certainly. It might 
be asked, Does a person not naturally carry his 
body as comfortably as he can ? And the answer 
is that a person very seldom does. It may ap- 
pear that this is being done, but the fact is not 
so. Some people naturally develop a habit of 
proper carriage, but they form a decided mi- 
nority. Without guidance the chances are that 
a child will grow up into bad habits of holding 
himself together. His spine will be left to do 
things it was never intended to do. He will 
sit, stand and walk without proper reliance on 
muscles that were intended to make all his 
movements easier. He will collapse while sit- 
ting, rest on his heels, perhaps, while standing, 
and breathe so perversely that any unusual 



18 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

exertion reveals the fact that only a limited 
series of muscles are brought into play, while 
the lungs are but half developed. 

It is of the utmost importance, then, at the 
very outset that a person should do those 
things properly which occupy so large a per- 
centage of the habits of his life. If there is a 
reflex action from correct habits of sitting, 
standing and breathing, to say nothing of other 
actions, it is quite clear that the formation of a 
correct habit will bring a certain percentage of 
added strength and health with no conscious 
exertion. It is like having money out at in- 
terest. The income does not seem to be 
worked for. 

In fact, it is stating a simple truth to say that 
a man or woman should get good health and 
sufficient strength and perfection of form in 
the ordinary activities of life, if those activ- 
ities, however meagre, are carried on in obedi- 
ence to right laws. This truth is one of far- 
reaching yet unsuspected importance. There 
is a prevailing impression that this, that and 
the other mode of life prevent the development 
of a strong body, a superstition that one can- 



HOW TO CARRY THE BODY. 19 

not be strong without athletics, and violent 
athletics at that. Men carelessly retard and in- 
jure their physical system during, say, fourteen 
and a half of their waking hours, and then hope 
to counteract all this by fifteen minutes' work on 
a few muscles of their body, and generally not 
on the muscles that are most injured by the 
carelessness of the day. 

It is a fact not very often taken into account 
that clothes, m their modern form, have a seri- 
ous tendency to interfere with the right devel- 
opment of the body, to hinder muscular action 
and to generally hamper the physical system. 
I do not speak now of such special features as 
the corset, but of clothing in general. Unless 
the tendency is specifically checked, most 
wearers of fashionable attire will find them- 
selves yielding to the tailor's or dressmaker's 
measurements. The stiff high collar worn by 
so many men rather helps the general poise of 
the head but is a dangerous obstacle to the 
healthy development of the neck muscles. The 
shoulders are, perhaps, particularly influenced by 
modern clothes. A man with low, sloping shoul- 
ders holds himself in a position to keep his sus- 



20 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

penders from slipping, and accommodates him- 
self to the habit of his coat. Then the conven- 
tional "cut" of trousers interferes with easy sit- 
ting, walking and stooping. Men sit so as not to 
"bag" or wrinkle their trousers, just as women, 
during the reign of the bustle, sat in a lop-sided 
fashion to accommodate the mysterious and 
ugly appendage. In many other ways people 
of both sexes, and scarcely oftener in one sex 
than in the other, are allowing their physical 
stature and habits to be strongly influenced by 
clothes. 

Instead of so doing it is a duty to carry the 
body correctly, to move and act in every par- 
ticular with reference to the health and beauty 
of the body without thinking of its covering. 
If the covering interferes either ignore the in- 
terference or select the covering differently. 
Let the* clothes fit and protect the body, and 
not allow the body to seek the favor of the 
clothes. I have said nothing of shoes, whose 
wretched form so often weakens the body by 
discouraging exercise and by impairing the 
circulation. Small and ill-fitting shoes have 
done as much damage in the world as corsets. 



HOW TO CARRY THE BODY. 21 

They have made cheerful people peevish and 
strong people indolent, if not weak. Have 
shoes large enough to give your feet abundant 
freedom. 

To get out of the ordinary activities of life 
all possible strength and health let us first 
learn to stand. A literal drawing of the actual 
standing position of twelve persons chosen at 
random would present a curious spectacle. 
The distended abdomen and more or less flat- 
tened chest would prevail in a majority of the 
dozen. It would be safe to say that in eleven 
out of the twelve the bone structure of the 
body and not the muscles would be found 
doing most of the work of keeping the body 
upright. The incorrect position, more or less - 
characteristic of a great many people, and not 
by any means representing an extreme case, is 
shown in the accompanying illustration. The 
abdomen is here pu ihed forward into disagreea- 
ble prominence, or rather the body is allowed 
to settle on the legs as it may, thus rounding the 
shoulders and protruding the abdominal region. 

This attitude is just as common among 
women as aaiong men, and perhaps more com- 



22 



THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 




FIG. i. 
Incorrect standing position, very com- 
monly observed among both men ana 
women. 



HOW TO CARRY THE BODY. 23 

mon. For one thing, corsets, while theoret- 
ically holding the body up, encourage lassitude 
of the waist region. And then women are 
liable to affect a " willowy " style of standing 
and moving. Many girls seem to think that 
there is a kind of feminine charm in a lacka- 
daisical manner. 

Now the fact is that the bone structure of 
the body should not be forced to perform the 
work thus thrust upon it The muscles should 
hold the body in position. Upon them de- 
volves the task of holding the trunk erect, of 
keeping the proper relation between the spine 
and the pelvis (the bone structure from which 
the backbone springs) and the upper leg bones 
where they join the pelvis, forming what is 
called the hip joint. It is worth remembering 
that the height of a man may be materially af- 
fected by the manner in which he carries his 
body. If he uses the muscles of the hip and 
abdominal region and of the back instead of 
allowing his trunk to settle down, he may be 
certain of establishing a better height than if 
he did otherwise, and this height will be per- 
manent. 



34 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

The spine may be relied upon to give a cer- 
tain support to the trunk. This may go with- 
out stating, but the multitude of muscles 
associated with the spine are intended to per- 
form the greater part of the work in keeping 
the body in position. As the rudder guides 
a boat or reins lead a horse, so the muscles 
direct the posture of the body. They not only 
direct but largely support the body, and this 
should be remembered in standing and in 
every other position and action. 

The correct position in standing is some- 
times curiously exaggerated by the protrusion 
of the chest to a grotesque and unnatural de- 
gree. Figure 2 may be taken as an example of 
the position sometimes seriously recommended. 
There is no naturalness, force or beauty in 
such a position. The author's views of the 
correct position are indicated by Fig. 3. As will 
be seen by this illustration, the lips, chin, chest 
and toes should come upon one line, with the 
feet turned at an angle of sixty degrees. In such 
a position the body acquires its greatest ease, its 
greatest endurance and its greatest readiness. 
The chest, the wall covering the great boilers 



HOW TO CARRY THE BODY. 



25 




FIG. *. 

exaggerated standing position, dis- 
torting spine and chest* 



26 



THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 




FIG. 3. 
Correct standing position, showing: 
natural and forcible carriage of th» 
body. 



HOW TO CARRY THE BODY. 2*J 

of the body — the lungs — is given the greatest 
prominence, while the abdomen is carried more 
modestly than most people are inclined to carry 
it. The shoulder, hip and ankle joints are also 
kept upon one line. The neck is carried erect so 
as to bring the collar-bone into a horizontal 
position. Notice the difference in the carriage 
of the head between Figures i and 3. 

The point of what I have urged is this : 
The muscles must be used in the support of 
the body — and all of the muscles that rightfully 
should. This does not imply greater labor, but 
less. What begins by a conscious effort will soon 
end in a habit — will become an exhilaration. 
What often passes for fatigue of the muscles is 
simply irritation arising from impeded circula- 
tion of the blood brought about not by the use 
but the cramping or non-use of muscles. 

This numbness or irritation from impeded 
circulation is particularly liable to result from 
bad habits in sitting. In sitting, as in stand- 
ing, the muscles must be brought into play, 
and precisely in proportion to the extent in 
which they are used will be the absence of 
fatigue in sitting. It is not to be maintained, 



28 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

of course, that a person should continually sit 
bolt upright. This would, for a person com- 
pelled to sit during a great many hours each 
day, entail great fatigue. Some of the muscles 
may be relaxed and the position modified for 
short periods, but the muscles should never be 
so relaxed as to drop the trunk upon the spine, 
leaving its own bone structure to hold it up. 
Those who have dropped into this round- 
backed position will testify to a peculiar 
weariness in the lumbar region of the spine, 
what is called the "small of the back." To 
rise or sit upright and stretch the arms and 
body affords a great relief. This is not because 
the muscles have been tired, but because they 
have been benumbed by failure in the circula- 
tion. A proper maintenance of muscular action 
will keep up the healthy circulation and make 
it easier to sit for a considerable time without 
fatigue. 

The cultivation of the muscles in the region 
of the abdomen and the lower part of the back 
will naturally have the effect of making it 
easier to sit, as every gain in the strength and 
extent of a system of muscles builds up a pow§r 



HOW TO CARRY THE BODY. 29 

of involuntary action. In relaxing the trunk 
the well-drilled army of muscles will be found 
to have acquired a power to hold the body up 
with little perceptible effort. 

In walking, keep face and chest well over 
the advanced foot, and preserve the habit of 
lifting the body with the muscles and by the 
inflation of the lungs. Of this I shall speak 
further in connection with the subject of 
breathing. Avoid a mincing step. Take a 
free, firm and easy stride, avoiding any hard 
jarring motions, keeping in mind during every 
movement or exertion the function of the mus- 
cles to support and move the body. 

I say--' keeping in mind " because I believe 
that the mind should not be above co-operation 
with the body. In fact, unless it does co-oper- 
ate with the body the body cannot be strong 
and healthy, and if the body is not strong and 
healthy what can the mind expect to be ? In 
recent years it has become something of a 
habit with a good many well-meaning people 
to say high sounding things about the superi- 
ority of the mind over the body, the essential 
insignificance of the body, etc. Is it not time 



30 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

to emphasize the influence of the body upon 
the mind ? Are we not constantly confronted 
by instances of the mind's dependence upon 
the body ? 

What I would like to emphasize is that the 
mind and body are dependent upon each other. 
The mind cannot get out of the partnership, 
however much it may wish to do so. It must 
stay, and it must do its share or suffer, and 
generally suffer keenly. The further our civi- 
lization advances the more complete this inter- 
dependence becomes. Under our fashion of 
living the body seems to require greater and 
greater attention from the mind, and the in- 
creasing mental strain assumed under our rest- 
less, hurrying life makes a greater and greater 
demand upon the vitality of the body. It is 
quite clear, then, that we are not in a position 
to talk about breaking the partnership. 

Of course this conscious use of the muscles 
will not continue to be as great as at the out- 
set. In time the proper management of the 
body becomes largely unconscious and invol- 
untary, but need never become wholly so. 



HOW TO BREATHE. 31 



III. 

HOW TO BREATHE. 

f\ T the time of this writing the newspapers 
/ contain comments on the illness and 
death of certain prominent athletes. The 
winner of many prizes passes away at the age 
of twenty-four. Lung weakness seizes upon 
other seemingly stalwart types of " trained" 
men. These are startling facts. They form a 
significant comment on some modern methods 
of drilling the machinery of the human body. 
If men are to gain muscle at the expense of 
their life, it is plain that people will soon begin 
to look askance at training methods of every 
kind. What is the difficulty ? Why has train- 
ing become dangerous? Why do lung and 
heart troubles assail in after years the enthusi- 
astic followers of highly active sport ? 

The answer seems to me to be this : That 



32 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

modern "training" has become a "straining" 
system that is frequently not only indiscreet 
but dangerous. It is dangerous not only be- 
cause of its useless violence and hardship, but 
because of the pernicious theories upon which 
it is founded. It begins on the outside instead 
of the inside. Greater than all its other evils 
is its neglect of the lungs. 

When we stop for a moment to consider the 
tremendous importance of the lungs it must 
become apparent that any neglect of these 
great central boilers of the body is the worst 
kind of neglect. The office of the lungs is of 
the very highest importance. This importance 
is incidentally acknowledged by many writers 
and teachers, but the development of the lungs 
is left to take care of itself, it being assumed as 
a general thing that all exercises tend suffici- 
ently to expand the lungs. ) To be sure, great 
stress is occasionally laid upon the expansion 
of the chest, but the assumption too frequently 
appears to be that this expansion is a matter of 
external muscular development. The theory 
is on a par with the general superficiality of the 
average system of training. The strength of 



HOW TO BREATHE. 33 

special parts in a steam engine, and even of 
bands on the boiler, will not prevent weakness 
and possibly an explosion if the material of the 
boiler itself is without strength. Hard layers . 
of muscles on the chest do not improve the 
permanent strength of the lungs. 

It should be clear that the enlarging and 
strengthening of the lungs can be satisfactorily 
accomplished only by the exercise and special 
training of those organs themselves — in other 
words, beginning on the inside. This truth 
lies at the very bottom of natural physical 
training. 

To learn to breathe is to learn the ABC 
of physical health, and it is of special impor- 
tance that this education of the lungs should 
precede the education of the outer muscular 
system, for the natural increase of lung strength 
and chest room is retarded by methods that 
begin work on the outside first. 

What I have to say on this point will become 
clearer by consultation of Fig. 4, which shows 
the manner in which the rib system incloses 
the chest. It will be seen that there is a joint 
in the ribs as they approach the centre of the 



34 



THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 



chest. From this joint forward to the central 
strip of bone substance, called the sternum, the 
ribs are made of a flexible cartilage that is 
readily developed under exercise. Breathing 
distends the ribs and cartilage in the most 
effective way ; indeed, in the only effectual way. 
To distend the chest by hollowing the back 

and throwing back the 
shoulders is merely a 
makeshift, while 
breathing creates a 
genuine tendency to 
expansion. The dot- * 
ted line will indicate 
the manner in which 
the rib-structure dis- 
tends under the in- 
terior pressure from 
the full lungs. 

The general posi- 
tion occupied by the 
lungs is shown very 
well in Fig. 5, where 
Showing area of aexibie cartilages, they are represented 

Dotted line shows proper direction . , 111 

•f expansion. by the shaded parts. 




HOW TO BREATHE, 



35 




S'Sterhuinor Breastbone. \ 
JUtMspiratory chest expansion* 



FIG. 



36 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

The dotted lines on each side again illustrate 
the chest expansion under full breathing. 

It will be noted in Fig. 5 that the lungs do not 
extend downward beyond the space between 
the fifth and sixth ribs. This may suggest the 
reason why the abdomen should not play so 
prominent a part in breathing as it so generally 
does. The diaphragm muscle, which separates 
the region of the lungs from the region of the 
stomach and liver, has the power to assist the 
lungs in receiving and expelling the air. But 
its power has been so greatly abused that the 
lungs and chest muscles have been left to do 
very little of the work that properly belongs to 
them. The unfortunate habit of abdominal 
breathing, as it is called, is particularly com- 
mon among men. The use of the corset, and 
other reasons, have produced among women 
a habit of breathing with the upper part of the 
lungs, a habit that has been to that extent for- 
tunate. Lung diseases are less frequent 
among women than among men. Women 
breathe less air than men, but they breathe it 
in a better way. Men generally exercise the 
lower parts of the lungs nearest the assisting 



HOW TO BREATHE. 37 

diaphragm, leaving the upper parts, that tirst 
receive the air, in a state of relative weakness 
and susceptibility. 

In my opinion the diaphragm has properly 
no greater necessary use in expanding and 
contracting the lungs than the ribs themselves. 
In other words, the action of the diaphragm 
should be sympathetic without being initiatory. 
The lungs have their own muscular power, and 
this power should be fully exercised. 

The simplest preparatory exercise is full, 
long breathing. While standing or sitting in 
any proper attitude, with the chest free, take in 
a long breath until the lungs seem full, taking 
care at the same time not to harshly strain the 
lungs or muscles. Hold the breath thus taken 
for a few seconds, and then allow it to slowly 
leave the lungs. By consciously breathing in 
this manner the lungs will be enlarged and 
strengthened and the breathing will become 
slower. Normal breathing, when the body is 
at rest, should not include more than ten 
breaths in a minute. I, myself, get along very 
comfortably with not more than six, sleeping or 
waking. During exercise of an ordinary char- 



38 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

acter the breathing will naturally increase to 
fourteen or fifteen breaths in the minute. 

At the outset long breaths will be a con- 
scious exercise. But the reader must not as- 
sume that he cannot develop an unconscious 
habit because the exereise seems at the start to 
require attention. Take long breaths as often 
as you think of it. You may not think of it 
more than once or twice a day at the beginning. 
Then you will find it easy to remember every 
hour or so, and then twice or three times an 
hour, until finally the habit is formed, and the 
old short, scant breath — a mere gasp in many 
people — is entirely abandoned. How soon, 
and to what extent this habit may be formed 
will depend to a great extent on the constitu- 
tion of the person, but the principle is of uni- 
versal application. A long breath will be found 
to represent strength, and strength that en- 
dures. From the elephant, who breathes eight 
times in a minute, to the mouse who breathes 
one hundred and twenty times in the same 
period, brute creatures are almost uniformly 
found to possess strength in proportion to the 
length of the respiratory movement. Curiously 



HOW TO BREATHE. 39 

enough it is the animal that most closely re- 
sembles man — the monkey — who, in confine- 
ment, first succumbs to disease of the lungs. 

In all lung exercises endeavor to inflate the 
lungs upward and outward instead of down- 
ward. Carry chest and lungs as if the inflation 
were about to lift the body off the ground up- 
ward and forward. The feeling of buoyancy 
given by this habit is not an illusion by any 
means. It is genuine. 

There are certain movements which combine 
the respiratory with muscular exercises. Such 
a preliminary exercise is indicated in Fig. 6. 
Take the correct standing position and place 
the hands together (locking the thumbs), as 
shown in the drawing at A. Raise the hands, 
keeping the arms straight, and at the same 
time take in a long breath. When the arms 
are raised as high as your muscular condition 
will allow without bending the body in any 
way, slowly lower the arms again, emiting the 
breath as they descend. Repeat this a num- 
ber of times. When the shoulder and chest 
muscles are in good condition, you will be able 
to raise the arms straight over the head with- 
out bending the body. 



4 



THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM, 




FIG. 6. 



HOW TO BREATHE. 



41 




FIG. 7, 



42 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

For another exercise combining respiration 
and muscular action assume the same position, 
raise the hands slowly while taking in a breath* 
and when they have reached a position over the 
head hold the breath while they are brought 
slowly down to the sides. Then slowly release 
the breath. Again, place the hands over the 
head as in Fig. 7, and as they are brought to 
the sides on a perfect line, draw in a breath 
corresponding in duration to the time occupied 
*n dropping the arms slowly. Release the 
breath gradually. 

• For a final exercise in this department the 
preliminary position is shown in Fig. 8. Hav- 
ing brought the elbows on a level with the 
shoulders, and the hands on the same line, 
extend the arms, with hands together as if in 
the act of swimming, taking in at the same 
time all the air the lungs will hold. Holding 
the lungs full, bring the hands around on an 
outer circle to points on a level with the shoul- 
ders, and then slowly empty the lungs while 
bringing the hands to the original position. 

These exercises will be found easy yet ex- 
hilarating, and will fill the double office of 



HOW TO BREATHE. 



43 




FIG. «. 



44 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

strengthening the lungs and developing the 
shoulder and chest muscles. Practice them 
after rising and before fully dressing in the 
morning, and again before retiring at night. 
It should not be difficult to find some opportu- 
nity for this practice some time again during 
* the day. These movements should not be 
performed more quickly than ten times a 
minute. 

It is well not to overdo these or other ex- 
ercises at the outset, since, by unduly tiring 
the muscles, the pleasure of exercising on the 
ensuing day will be largely destroyed by a 
sense of pain. Nothing is gained by straining. 



MUSCLES AND WHAT THEY DO. 45 



MUSCLES AND WHAT THEY DO. 

l^EFORE passing to the general training of 
*"^ the muscular system it cannot be in- 
advisable to pause for a moment and con- 
sider what a muscle is and what it is capable 
of doing. I have more than once seen men, 
speaking of their power to strike a blow, 
proudly touch the bunch of muscle on the top 
of the upper-arm, as if that supplied the power 
in striking, when, in fact, it is the muscles on 
the back of the arm that supply the force by 
which the arm is straightened. Incidents of 
this kind furnish a reminder that very few 
people realize the character — the structure — of 
muscles, or understand clearly the functions 
they perform. Indeed, judging from the sys- 
tems of training now so common, and the con- 
duct of athletes in general, it seems question- 
able whether a knowledge of the muscles, their 



46 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

needs and application, is even as well diffused 
as many have supposed. 

Generally speaking a muscle is formed of a 
mass of small fibres running parallel with one 
another, and possessing a power of contraction 
more or less great, according to their health 
and training. This power of contraction 
draws closer to each other the two ends of the 
muscles, and by so doing brings the bones to 
which the two ends are attached that much 
nearer together. The muscle is attached to 
the bone by white, unelastic cords called ten- 
dons. These tendons are so strong and so 
securely fastened to the bone that the sudden 
contraction of the muscle in pulling is more 
liable to snap the bone than the concussion 
of v fall itself. Muscles, indeed, break a 
great many bones in one way or another. 

The muscles of the body are arranged for 
the most part in complimentary groups, by 
which they act together, pulling and relaxing 
as the case may be. Thus in the limbs the 
muscles which straighten the bones are called 
the extensor muscles, while those that bend 
them are called flexor muscles. The biceps 



MUSCLES AND WHAT THEY DO. 



47 



on the front of the upper arm are flexor mus- 
cles, because they pull up the fore-arm. To 
straighten out the arm again the triceps on the 
back of the arm exercise their office as exten- 
sors In the same manner the flexors of the 
leg are on the back and the flexors of the 
hand are on the palm. 



Bones. 

Muscular fibres, 
m Tendons t uniting 

muscle to bones. 
A,A, Prints Ql which 
tendons attach Jo bones 



The ac - 
companying 
illustration 
(Fig. 9,) will 
give an idea 
of the manner 
in which the 
biceps act in 
bending the 
arm. The ten- 
don joins the forearm not far below the elbow 
joint, thus giving the muscles a very quick 
leverage on the arm. With so short a hold, 
however, this muscle requires great power. 
Of course in flexing the arm, the forearm 
muscles — which, in their turn, are united with 
the upper arm — are also brought into play. 
When the muscles on the front and back of 




FIG. 9. 



4 8 



THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 



the arm are both drawn at once the limb be- 
comes rigid. The same remarks apply to Fig. 
10, which shows the chief muscles that carry 
the body on the toe. The bone of the heel 
forms a sort of lever upon which the contract- 
ing muscles in the "calf" of the leg operate. 

In order to feel any 
of the muscles to the 
best advantage estab- 
lish some resistance — 
such as a weight in the 
hand to discern the 
flexors, and a pressure 
downward against 
some obstacle to 
watch the action of 
the extensors — the 
muscles on the back 
of the arm. The func- 
tion of the muscle is 
thus to pull. Every 
movement of which 
the body is possible is 
brought about by the 
F1( ; , pulling of one or more 



m Bones. 

m Muscular fibres. 

E9 Tendons, uniting 

muscles to bones. 
A.A.A.A., Points where 

tendons attach to 

bones. 




MUSCLES AND WHAT THEY DO. 49 

muscles. The pulling is, as I have said, 
accomplished by the contraction of the mus- 
cles, and this power of contraction is inherent 
in them. It belongs to their very nature ; 
for while our will generally telegraphs through 
what are called the motor nerves what it 
wishes the muscle to do, the muscle will 
contract under certain circumstances with- 
out any order from the will. Indeed, if a 
muscle is removed from the body it will 
still contract under stimulus from pinching 
or from the sting of acid. Of course it is 
the duty of every healthy being to keep the 
muscles as perfectly under the control of the 
will as possible. The partnership between the 
brain and the muscles should be complete and 
continuous. It may be set down as an abso- 
lute truth that no one will become unconscious 
of his body in the right sense until he has first 
become thoroughly and intelligently conscious 
of every part of it. 

Now the contractility of a muscle, the power 
it has to shorten and draw its ends closer to- 
gether, depends on the extent and condition of 
the fibres, the bulky part of the muscle as dis- 



50 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

tinguished from the hard and uncontractable 
tendons. These fibres, looking, when highly 
magnified, like a bunch of red worms all 
stretched in the one direction, form the meat of 
the body as distinguished from the bone and 
gristle. In fact, the muscles make up in weight 
more than half the bulk of the body. From 
this it may be judged without argument that 
the health of this machinery is of very great 

importance to the 

A- Unravelled Fibrillae. \ n L - tj1 r - , , 

B- Ruptured Fibre. Jig wealth of the body. 

The muscles are not 
implements which may 
or may not be used and 
cultivated according to 
fig. ii. the taste and pursuits 

of the person. They must be used and devel- 
oped or the body will fall into ill-health. 
They are more than half of us and must be 
taken into consideration in a serious and intel- 
ligent manner. 

The chief reason why the muscles must be 
kept in use is that their health directly effects 
the circulation of the blood, and upon the per- 
fect circulation of the blood physical health is 




MUSCLES AND WHAT THEY DO. $1 

greatly dependent The moment a muscle is 
put in action the blood dances through it with 
increased speed. As it develops, more and 
more blood is called to supply it. In its great- 
est heat it is greatly charged with blood. It is 
for the same reason that all of the muscles 
should be called into play in the general car- 
riage and use of the body, for if the activity of 
certain muscles quickens and improves the cir- 
culation, and the disuse and ill-health of other 
muscles disturbs the circulation in another part 
it is quite plain that the general circulation will 
be at a loss. The result will be coldness in 
the feet and hands, and a constant danger to 
the weaker organs of the body. A sluggish 
circulation, resulting from the disuse of large 
areas of the muscular system, means many 
terrors to the unfortunate victim. Neuralgia 
and kindred complaints are a frequent result 
of inactivity and confinement. The first step 
toward a cure of such ills should not be drugs, 
but studious deep breathing and exercise. 

People are frequently astounded by the 
great strength of an athlete. The trained man, 
lumpy with muscles and glowing with health, 



52 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

lifts some tremendous weight and carries it for 
a distance. The feat, incredible to the hearer, 
is scarcely comprehended even by the specta- 
tor. What does it mean? Are the athlete's 
direct lifting muscles so much beyond the 
normal in power ? 

The truth is that the athlete's effort is suc- 
cessful, not so much because his individual 
muscles are greatly superior to the same mus- 
cles in the normally developed man, but be- 
cause he uses more of them. The majority of 
people do not know half the muscles they own. 
If they unexpectedly make use of a muscle long 
left out of account and in a half dead condition, 
it gives them a twinge, they are frightened off. 
They rub it with arnica and endeavor never to 
use it again. They lift, carry, stoop, reach and 
climb with scarcely a majority of their muscles. 
Of course, in a violent exercise like some forms 
of dancing, a large proportion of the muscles 
are brought into play, but many of them only 
slightly and only under such exceptional con- 
ditions. It is in an understanding of the scope 
of the muscular action in a given movement 
that a man will secure power in that movement. 



MUSCLES AND WHAT THEY DO. 53 

Take the case of a blow with the fist. In a 
gymnasium a number of young men will 
gather near a suspended sand bag. One after 
the other will hammer at the object forcing it 
to swing at various angles. The owner of 
perhaps the stoutest arms only sends it out at 
right angles. Then steps up a young man of 
comparatively light-weight and triceps inferior 
in bulk to those of many of the others. This 
young man strikes a blow at the bag and it 
bounds clean over the point of suspension. 
How did he do it ? 

In the first place the young man knew the 
right moment in the extension of the muscles 
at which to make contact with the bag ; but 
particularly he knew how to throw all of his 
muscles and all of his weight into the blow # 
He used every muscle he possibly coOld, down 
to the tendon Achilles in his heel, and he made 
every one do all it possibly could. 

The continuous health and use of all the 
muscles will thus not only have the effect of 
securing that great boon to the system — a free 
circulation — but it will give an incalculable 
advantage in every muscular effort. The bocly 



54 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

acquires not only greater power, but greater 
ease and grace. It acquires in general the 
great sustaining power of distributed responsi- 
bility. A man or woman who holds the body 
erect, or in any necessary posture, with the aid 
of but a few trained muscles, possibly supported 
by a few others that are occasionally called 
into play and that soon tire, grows fatigued 
much sooner than one whose weight is carried 
by a well-drilled army of fibres, fully supplied 
with stimulating blood. 

When it comes to training the muscles, their 
relation to the blood circulation should never 
be overlooked. That this relation is continu- 
ally overlooked in modern athletic training I 
need scarcely say. It is very well understood 
that modern training is too often engaged in 
making muscles "hard," as if their mere hard- 
ness was a sign of the most valuable condition 
To be sure a man covered with hard muscles 
will often display great immediate power, but 
not of endurance, and of after health he can 
have little chance. 

The highest state of health and power in a 
muscle will always lie in its flexibility rather 



MUSCLES AND WHAT THEY DO. 55 

than in its hardness. A man trained until his 
muscles "feel like iron/' is really in a danger- 
ous condition. He soon gets out of " training/' 
and is then immediately at a loss. His muscles 
feed upon his vitality, ~nd, especially when he 
has passed middle-life, threaten his general 
health. A man so "muscle bound,'' as the 
saying goes, is not in possession of a power. 
The power owns him. 

On the other hand, a man who keeps his 
muscular system in a state of comparative soft- 
ness and high flexibility can not only summon 
great strength, but his powers of endurance 
are surprising. He is, too, easily kept in train- 
ing. Natural exercise will preserve his condi- 
tion, and he is at any time ready to train for 
special effort, if that is necessary, without 
shock or inconvenience. 

Muscular exercise, however slight, results 
in a waste of tissue in the flesh fibres, and this 
waste is carried off. During repose the blood 
returns new material, and the stimulated action 
increases the area of blood circulation and 
enlarges the muscular mass. When exercise 
is properly conducted this waste and renewal 



$6 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

go gradually and easily forward, preserving 
complete health in the parts and steadily in- 
creasing the resources. But when the exercise 
is unnecessarily violent the destruction of tissue 
is injuriously carried on. The process of re- 
pair cannot so nicely supplement the waste as 
in the case of reasonable exertion. And when 
exercise is introduced infrequently — -after 
periods of almost complete inaction — it cannot 
atone for the sin of collapse. It will not do, 
as I have suggested, to sit, stand and move 
badly for ninety-nine one hundredths of the 
time and then hope to make things come out 
even by one per cent, of right exercise. 

The muscles will have the greatest health, 
strength and " staying" power that are kept 
flexible and full of blood by continuous use in 
every day life. To expect them to keep 
healthy by an infrequent fifteen minutes at 
some machinery, is as unreasonable as to think 
of preserving the comfort of the stomach with 
one meal a week. 



THE JOINTS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT. $7 



V. 



THE JOINTS AND THEIR 
DEVELOPMENT. 

THIS is not a surgical treatise and my desire 
is to spare the reader or student as much 
as possible of dry, scientific detail. But the 
most common-sense view of this training mat- 
ter, especially if we are to work from the 
inside, demands that we should constantly 
keep in mind the structure of the body. 
We have a certain physical system to work on. 
That is our foundation, and it will be of no 
avail to ignore either the limitations or the 
possibilities of that system. 

I have never believed that the creator had 
this or that intention about the body. If the 
creator had any definite intention about the 
physical machinery of man, it was that that 
machinery should be of the utmost service to 



58 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

man, and that it should be made all that its 
owner can make it. What we really mean when 
we speak of intention is that the splendid 
mechanical arrangement of the bones and 
muscles seems to have an especial adaptability 
to this or that function. I have already spoken 
of the beautiful versatility of t h e human 
physique. Man's bone structure gives him a 
scope of movement nowhere equaled among 
the lower animals. This is because man's in- 
telligence has taught him to aid his own devel- 
opment in every useful direction. The horse, 
for instance, with its short collar bones and 
undeveloped latteral muscles, has all of his 
power in forward and backward movements, 
and almost none in movements to one side or 
the other. Every one has noticed how difficult 
it is for a fallen horse to raise himself. The 
horse has only developed the muscles that are 
most useful to him in the service of man. Man 
finds so many uses for his own joints and mus- 
cles that he is continually bringing them to a 
higher state ot versatility. 

But he by no means uses his bone system 
as it might and should be used. He gives 



THE JOINTS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT. 59 

only a half-use to his joints as he gives only a 
half-use to most of his muscles. This is very 
largely because he usually has but a very slight 
knowledge of the actual location and capacity 
of his joints. He bends his spine in stooping 
as if there were no hip joints in his anatomy. 
It is often remarked that man first ascertained 
the location of his stomach when an indiscreet 
meal brought confusion in that locality. Most 
of us forget about the joints until some novel 
slip or movement gives the unused machinery 
a twinge, and then, instead of following up the 
lesson and making that joint serviceable, we 
are very liable to avoid any further service in 
the offending part. 

The extremities of two or more bones form- 
ing a joint are covered with cartilage, which, 
as I have said, is a solid but softer substance 
than bone, and one whose smoothness and 
elasticity keep the ends of the bone from wear- 
ing. As in the case of all other material of 
the body, this cartilage is in best health when 
the function it has is evenly and naturally ex- 
ercised. The cartilage is covered with a thin 
layer called the synovial membrane, and 



60 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

the joints are continually oiled and kept 
in working condition by a fluid called synovia. 
Then a series of tough bands, called ligaments, 
hold the heads of the bones in proper position. 

Joints like those at the knee and ankle are 
called hinge joints, while others, like those at 
the shoulder and hip, are ball and socket 
joints. One is constructed very differently 
from the other but both are operated on the same 
principle and have the same general conditions 
of health and strength. 

The joint itself, if we were to mean the 
bones merely, has all the flexibility that the 
surrounding ligaments and the connecting 
muscles will give it. That the difficulty of 
bending is not in the bones but in the liga- 
ments and muscles about the bones will be 
illustrated by the fact that one has little diffi- 
culty in placing the knee against the chest. 
But stand upright and endeavor to carry the 
chest toward the knees and the operation is 
found to be very difficult. Or endeavor to lift 
the stiffened leg toward the chest, and it will 
be found impossible to acquire the whole dis- 
tance. This is because the muscles and ten- 



THE JOINTS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT. 6l 

dons have not been trained to sufficiently 
accommodate themselves to the severe relaxa- 
tion. When the joints are not fully trained by 
use the same difficulty will constantly arise, 
and even in the minor movements. 

The ligaments are necessarily made to hold 
the bones very firmly. If they did not cases 
of dislocation would be much more frequent 
than they now are. When a bone becomes 
dislocated the ligaments and muscles draw the 
points of union past each other. In the case 
of the shoulder this is not a very serious affair, 
for that joint, being relatively in a state of Jiigh 
flexibility, may usually be reset without great 
difficulty. Many contortionists can voluntarily 
dislocate one or both of their shoulders by 
muscular action, and restore their position 
without difficulty. But in the case of the thigh, 
for instance, the situation is very different. A 
visitor to a hospital will often observe a patient 
lying with one leg extended on a support end- 
ing in a pulley and weights. The weights, 
sometimes of many pounds, are " tiring out" 
the contracting elements about the joint. 
When they are sufficiently Sl tired ' by the pro- 



62 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

longed pulling, and acknowledge themselves 
beaten, the head of the dislocated bone is 
placed in position and the muscles again ac- 
quire the necessary contractility. 

It is thus important that in developing the 
muscles of the body the office of the joints 
should be kept in mind. The bones are not 
insensible material but contain a blood system, 
a life and sensitiveness equal to that of the 
other parts of the body. They are, in fact, as 
much dependent upon exercise for health as 
the muscles. Moreover, a bone may be in- 
creased in dimensions by exercise, so that the 
chances of increasing the height and building 
out the frame by carrying the body in the best 
manner, will be aided by the actual growth of 
properly exercised bones. 

The proper use of the hip joint is, perhaps, 
most frequently ignored. As I have suggested 
the bones of the spine are continually strained, 
the chest contracted and the abdomen distended 
in an effort to save the hip joint and the muscles 
affecting its use from performing the service 
that belongs to them. 

By frequent and easy practice the hips may 



THE JOINTS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT. 6$ 

be made what they should be — the natural 
hinge in the middle of the body. Begin by 
ascertaining with the finger the location of the 
hip joints. Place the middle finger of each 
hand on the corresponding hip joint — at the 
exact locality of the hinge — and the thumbs of 
each hand on the edge of the hip or pelvis 
itself. Now bend forward and the relation of 
the pelvis bone to the leg joint will be readily 
perceived by the touch of the thumbs and fin- 
gers. The action of bending is, indeed, a back- 
ward movement of the hinge of the body and 
not a forward movement of the head as the 
beginner generally assumes. Let the consci- 
ous movement be in the hips, and preserve the 
natural relations of head, neck and back. Re- 
peat several times the motion of bending from 
an upright position to a point as low as possible 
without bending the back. At the outset a stick 
of any sort — a broom handle if you choose — may 
be held with one hand upright against the spine, 
head, hollow of the back and foot of spine, all 
touching, while the stooping over is tried 
several times, until the straightness of the back- 
is secured, and it becomes plain that the hips 



o 4 



THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

95 




FIG. xa. 

Illustrating the bone system of the body as seen in the incorrect and 
correct standing positions and the manner in which the proper use of the 
hip (or pelvis) and back muscles may increase the height and symmetry 
of the body. The figure to the right is that of a man naturally two ot three 
inches shorter than the figure to the left. 



THE JOINTS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT. 65 

are doing all the bending. When the motion is 
first tried the pupil invariably arches the head 
and neck, and perhaps hollows the back. 

For the purposes of this practice guard 
against any movement of the back or neck, 
and the value of these fine hip hinges will be- 
gin to appear. Repeat these movements with 
the hands raised above the head. Then bend 
forward as far as the hip joints will allow, 
throw the shoulders up and forward, and touch 
the floor with the tips of the fingers, without 
bending the knees. The latter movement is a 
familiar feature of the military "setting up" 
drill and is of great value. When first attempted 
it is generally found difficult, though some 
persons, with no special effort, easily bend in 
this way. After repeated practice it will be 
found possible not only to touch the floor but 
to hold the fingers there, then to touch and 
hold the second joint of the fingers and finally, 
perhaps, even the palms. 

The action of the shoulders in this move- 
ment brings up the importance of developing 
the shoulders. The power of the shoulder 
movement in itself is surprising. Stand up- 



66 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

right in the correct position and lift the shoul- 
ders as high as possible, lowering them after- 
ward as far as they will go. Now bring them 
forward and draw them back as far as they can 
reach in each direction. Repeat these move- 
ments and endeavor to keep the shoulders flex- 
ible and vigorous. By training the shoulders 
the clavicle, or collar bone, with the other 
bones and muscles involved, increase the width 
and general bulk of the shoulders. 

A special exercise for the development of 
the shoulders with the muscles of the back and 
sides is this : Stand sideways near some vertical 
surface, like the wall of a room, at a point suf- 
ficiently distant to allow the hand when extend- 
ed to easily touch the surface. Now move an 
inch further away and touch the surface again 
without altering the position of the feet, legs or 
pelvis (Fig. 13.) A second time move an inch 
and this time there will be some difficulty in 
reaching. Repeat the movement until the sur- 
face cannot be reached, then do the same with 
the other arm and shoulder. The effort to 
reach will draw out and straighten the shoul- 
ders, and it will be discovered that the shoul- 



THE JOINTS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT. 67 




FIG 13. 



68 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

ders can be made to have a distinct lateral 
extension. Stand with the back to the wall 
and the arms extended and make a pencil 
mark at the ends of the second fingers when 
the shoulders are most contracted. Now 
reach out as far as possible each way, and the 
difference in reach will be found, at the end of 
a few of the exercises just given, to steadily 
increase. After a few months of reasonable 
practice with the shoulders the tailor may, if it 
has been his practice, be requested to leave out 
the cotton padding in the coat. 

There is a complimentary action between 
the shoulder and hip that is well illustrated in 
the act of stooping. An effective method of 
stooping is shown in Fig. 14. The first bend- 
ing is of the knee. Then the hip hinges work 
and the body bends forward — partly move the 
shoulders, by which the hand is easily brought 
to the ground without the wrenching of the 
spine and the discomfort of both lungs and 
abdomen. In such movements the tendency 
is to distend the abdomen, but in this and in 
all similar movements the abdomen should be 
contracted and kept under muscular control. 



THE JOINTS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT. 09 




FIG, 14. 



70 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

In the same manner when seated do not 
reach over a table, for instance, by curving the 
back, but by throwing forward the shoulder. 
If this does not bring the hand near enough the 
object, bend at the hips. The great value of a 
flexible shoulder in reaching is shown by the 
fact that, with the spine firmly held against the 
back of a chair, the hand may, with practice, 
be osillated in a direct forward reach from two 
to six inches. 

I have thus far but sketched the value of a 
proper training for tne joints. In another chap- 
ter I shall take up a series of exercises bringing 
both joints and muscles into play. 



EXERCISES FOR MUSCLES AND JOINTS. 71 



VI. 

EXERCISES FOR MUSCLES AND 
JOINTS. 

f\ LL exercises of the joints involve certain 
I * exercises of the muscles, but there are 
some that involve simply a relaxation of cer- 
tain muscles with only sufficient tension in 
others to keep the body erect meanwhile. 
Such, for instance, is this useful exercise for 
the attainment of flexibility in the pelvic region 
or the region of the hips : 

Take the correct standing position, then 
relax the muscles so as to permit the whole 
weight of the body to fall on the left leg, allow- 
ing the right leg to bend and the right hip to 
sag down as far as it may. Now transfer this 
weight to the right leg and allow the left hip to 
drop as loosely as possible. This would be a 
very bad position to stand in, but the exercise 



72 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

of transfering the weight from one side of the 
pelvis to the other, gives increased flexibility 
and vigor to the muscles and ligaments of this 
region, and will give increased elasticity and 
endurance in walking. On the first occasion 
the exercise should be repeated slowly, and 
might last one or two minutes. After renewed 
practice it will be found easy to drop rapidly 
from one hip to the other without inconvenience 
and to prolong the exercise for four or five 
minutes. 

The training of the spine should be carried 
on with the training of the pelvis, from which 
bony framework it rises. In pointing out that 
the spine should not be bent in every stooping 
and reaching movement, the theory was not 
that it was to its disadvantage to bend, but that 
the habit of bending forward needlessly ham- 
pered the lungs and digestive region. The 
spine itself should be thoroughly exercised, for 
the same reason that other regions should be 
kept in reasonable activity. 

To give the spine a flexibility necessary to 
the comfort of the body it should be frequently 
moved in all directions consistent with its 



EXERCISES FOR MUSCLES AND JOINTS. 73 

structure. Under proper cultivation the spine 
has great versatility of movement. Between 
each of the bones of the spinal column are 
disks of " fibro-cartilage," as the anatomists 
call it, a substance which operates as a cushion 
between each section of vertebrae and constitut- 
ing a continuous safeguard against accident to 
the great bone centre of the body. These cush- 
ions form actually about one-fourth of the 
spinal column, and they not only render the 
column susceptible of modification, so far as its 
lengthening or shortening is concerned, but 
they make it possible for the column to twist 
vertically to a considerable extent. Numerous 
ligaments, forming a beautifully complex struct- 
ure, hold the whole system of bones and 
cushions in position, and the stout muscles of 
the back hold an intimate relation with them. 
It is these ligaments and muscles that require 
to be treated in the exercise of the spine. 

An exercise of a simple but effective charac- 
ter is acquired in this way : After assuming the 
correct standing position, extend the arms 
until the hands are brought on a level with the 
shoulders. Holding the arms and shoulder* 



74 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

upon a straight line and keeping the arms 
directly opposite each other, as if actually held 
in position by a long pole passed across the 
baek of the neck and held in position by the 
thumbs (this plan may be followed if desired), 
swing the arms and shoulders in unison, first in 
one direction and then in the other until the 
line of the arms, at the extreme tension of the 
swing, is as nearly as possible at right-angles 
with the first position. Swing in this way at 
the rate of about twenty movements to the 
minute until the muscles of the shoulders and 
back feel tired. The greatest flexibility will be 
found in the upper region of the spine — a slight 
flexing of each section of the vertebrae, giving 
an aggregate twist that will, with practice, be- 
come considerable. If the arms do not swing 
the shoulders with them, the exercise will have 
little value. And it is to be remembered that 
the hips should, during the exercise, keep 
their natural position and not swing with the 
shoulders. 

A variation upon this exercise is illustrated 
in Figs. 15 and 16. In Fig. 15 the arms are 
brought to a position at right-angles with their 



EXERCISES FOR MUSCLES AND JOINTS 7§ 




FIG. is 



THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM* 




FIG. 16. 



EXERCISES FOR MUSCLES AND JOINTS. J} 

original line, the hips in this case being turned 
slightly. Now, keeping the arms rigidly oppo- 
site each other, bend the left arm downward, 
at the same time bending the left knee only, 
and touch the floor between the two feet, as 
shown in Fig. 16. Raise the left hand until the 
arms resume the position of Fig. 15, and swing 
the arms about until the right hand occupies a 
forward position. Bending the right knee (the 
left being kept rigid), the floor may now be 
touched in the same manner with the right 
hand. These positions may be alternated at 
the rate of about fifteen changes to the minute. 
The exercise is an excellent one. 

In the two movements just described keep 
the face directed toward one point in front of 
the figure. By so doing the neck will be given 
some work to do and will be strengthened in 
all repetitions of the exercise. To further 
strengthen the neck — and a development of the 
neck muscles will prevent many a headache 
that arises from no other cause but muscular 
fatigue — stand with the back against a wall. 
Without moving any part of the back or shoul- 
ders away from the wall, move the head for- 



7% 



THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 



ward and back a number of times, keeping the 
face on the same vertical line as when the back 
of the head touches the wall. Then practice 
a side to side movement of the head, without 
altering the vertical line of the head, as in Fig. 
17. In this second movement it will be found 
very difficult at the beginning not to roll the 

head, but be content 
with a slight move- 
ment at the outset, 
and in time it will 
be found possible to 
oscillate the head 
several inches with- 
out altering the ver- 
tical line. 

The great ad- 
vantage of move- 
ments of the neck, in which the head is managed 
independently, is an increased control of all the 
muscles in this region of the body. It is thus not 
merely the exercise of the muscles that all these 
movements are designed to accomplish, but 
the control of the muscles, so that every muscle 
may, in so far as that is possible in ordinary 




EXERCISES FOR MUSCLES AND JOINTS. 79 

training, be under reasonable control. The 
value of such perfection of control I cannot 
reiterate too frequently. The exhilaration, the 
increased iocal strength, and the increased 
general health, are certain to render control 
worth the effort. 

An exercise of much value in perfecting the 
poise and supleness of the body, and in 
strengthening the legs, is illustrated in Fig. 18. 
Assume the standing position, with the hands at 
the sides. Draw the arms backward until the 
hands are about eighteen inches from the ver- 
tical line of the body, relax the leg muscles and 
drop quid ly into the position shown in the 
drawing. As the body descends, bring forward 
the hands, and by continuing their swing the 
balance of the body will be better preserved 
while it sinks and rises again to the first posi- 
tion. The natural elasticity of the muscles will 
tend to send the body upw r ard again after it 
has dropped upon the heels, and the movement 
may be repeated, according to the condition of 
the muscles, from three or four to a dozen times. 
Remember to keep the body above the hips 
perfectly upright during the exercise. 



8o 



THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM, 



"\ 




FI&X& 



EXERCISES FOR MUSCLES AND JOINTS. 8* 

Another exercise benefiting the legs, hips 
and chest : Place one foot before the other as in 
stepping, rise on the toes (or, properly speak- 
ing, the ball of the foot), and springing slightly 
transpose the relative positions of the feet so 
that by a regular repetition the effect will be as 
of a still walk. The arms may be swung in 
sympathy with the movement. During the 
exercise practice a long and steady breathing 
—with the lips closed, of course. 

It will he observed that while some of these 
exercises place considerable tax on the agility 
of the muscles, there are none of them violent. 
Dozens of other movements pursuing the same 
line of development will readily occur to one 
who enters upon practice. My purpose is al- 
ways to lead the pupil by gradual steps to the 
point where he or she shall feel a perfect famil- 
iarity with and mastery of all the muscles of 
the body. When this has been accomplished, 
in connection with the development of the 
lungs, the pupil is ready for the heavier athletic 
training, with which this book is not concerned, 
and with which all but a small number of peo- 
ple have neither the time nor the necessity to 
be interested. 



82 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

Even sedentary people will find many ways 
of amplifying in practical exercise the forego- 
ing special exercises for the lungs, muscles and 
joints. Yet it is necessary to avoid violent ex- 
periments. In lifting anything whatever, en- 
deavor to bring all the necessary muscles into 
play. The action will require a certain amount 
of thought, for in a spasmodic effort it is easy 
to seriously strain a few muscles left to dp an 
involuntary service. In fact, a failure to con- 
centrate effort in the right manner often does 
an injury, when the movement intelligently 
made exhilarates without straining or " wind- 
ing " the person. 

In his recent scientific work on the " Physi- 
ology of Bodily Exercise," Dr. Lagrange em- 
phasizes this point : " Exercise," says the 
writer, " performed without moderation or rule 
induces all forms and degrees of fatigue, and 
exposes the human machine to various injuries 
which we have described as the accidents of 
work. On the other hand, muscnlar work per- 
formed in gradually increasing quantity and ac- 
cording to the rules of graduated training, 
bring about a progressive adaptation of the 



EXERCISES FOR MUSCLES AND JOINTS. 83 

organs in the performance of more and more 
violent exercise. It improves the human 
motor by giving to all its machinery a greater 
strength and ease of working. Such are the 
results of exercise considered as an abstract 
factor and reduced to the quantity of work 
represented by it. But it is only by a mental 
effort that we can isolate the work done by 
the system from the organs concerned in the 
performance. Now these organs are not the 
same in all cases, and do not work in the same 
manner in all forms of exercise. Thus, the 
practice of different exercises produces different 
effects on the system. Hence the use of a 
rational classification of the different exercises, 
and the necessity of making a choice from 
among them in accordance with the effects 
desired." 

Light exercises and exercises that vigor- 
ously tax the strength each have their place 
and value. The point is that they should not 
be misplaced. The exercises given are de- 
signed to awaken the muscular system, to give 
it flexibility and readiness, and it will be found 
when the training on these lines has been 



84 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

carefully advanced, that a heavy demand on 
the muscles has no terrors, that the general 
strength has been splendidly increased in a 
degree entirely out of proportion to the in- 
creased size of the individual muscles. 



THE TREATMENT OF OBESITY. 85 



VII. 

THE TREATMENT OF OBESITY. 

^ ^ I ET me have men about me that are fat," 
^^ says the Caesar of Shakespeare's play. 
But then there may be too much of a good 
thing. There is a happy mein between the 
" lean and hungry " proportions of Cassius and 
the too ample outlines of the Leicester gentle- 
man who, early in this century, carried to his 
grave a body weighing 789 pounds. In our 
own day, with all the hurrying and scurrying 
brought by the Twentieth Century method of 
living, a large number of people suffer from an 
accumulation of fat, and the treatment of per- 
sons so afflicted receives much attention and 
calls up many ingenious schemes and sug- 
gestions. 

The most popular method of combating 
corpulency is by dieting. A thousand and 



86 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

one pamphlets and patent medicines bear 
promises of salvation for the afflicted fat. 
Many a worthy person has suffered the 
agonies of semi-starvation in an effort to reduce 
his weight, and has sometimes succeeded in 
getting rid of a few pounds. Many others 
have chosen to " eat and drink " if they cannot 
u live and be merry," preferring the inconven- 
iences and dangers of corpulency to the tor- 
tures of a greatly restricted diet. 

So long as certain articles of food are rec- 
ognized as having greater properties for pro- 
ducing fat than others, it is plain that dieting 
may have some influence on the quantity of fat 
accumulated. But it only succeeds in reducing 
the formation of fat, and does nothing toward 
getting rid of fat after it is formed. In a per- 
son otherwise healthy this can only be done by 
exercise — not merely abstract " airings," which 
fleshy people sometimes consider exercise, 
but locally applied exercise, intelligently and 
conscientiously pursued. 

Regarded rightly obesity is simply a disease 
and must be specifically treated like any other 
disease. When the natural functions of the 



THE TREATMENT OF OBESITY. $7 

body proceed without interruption there can be 
no accumulation of fat. It is only by the fail- 
ure of some natural process that fat increases 
beyond the desirable point. 

In the growth of the body-materials fat is 
accumulated and consumed again just as stead- 
ily as coal is. burned in the engine, or as the 
chemical ingredients of an electric battery are 
gradually exhausted. This fat feeds the mus- 
cles — every muscular effort producing a certain 
amount of combustion. If the muscles are not 
exercised, the fatty substance, which would be 
burned up and carried off by the action of the 
muscles, steadily accumulates. 

The accumulation of fat under the absence 
of exercise operates against its owner in more 
ways than one. Not only does it increase his 
weight, retard his movements by increasing 
bulk, and interfere with his breathing, but it 
unduly heats the body. The blood of a fat 
person is likely to become overheated, and is 
difficult to cool. Thus these excessive layers 
of fat, operating like so many excessive layers 
of clothing, are a constant menace to the com- 
fort and the health of the body. 



88 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

Exercise directly attacks superfluous fat. 
How much fat may be superfluous depends 
upon the constitution and temperament of the 
person. Under the most vigorous training 
some people retain a good deal of fat. They 
are by nature plump. But their fat is no detri- 
ment to them. They move with as much ease 
and as little breathlessness as other people. 
The quantity of fat to be lost under exercise 
thus depends upon the individual, but will al- 
ways, of course, be considerable in proportion 
to the amount accumulated without exercise 
and under the unrestricted influence of the 
disease at its height. 

Exercise not only reduces fat but it reduces 
it in the most direct and effective way. In half 
an hour of vigorous exercise a man may reduce 
his weight by a pound or more. The rapidity 
with which fat may be burned off in the activity 
of the muscles is often, indeed, surprising- 
This dissipation of fat is local ; that is to say, 
it disappears in localities in which muscles are 
active, and in proportion to their activity. 
Thus people will accumulate fat in accordance 
very largely with their personal habits. Peo- 



THE TREATMENT OF OBESITY. 89 

pie who sit a great deal, yet have occasion to 
use their arms considerably, will be found with 
arms having proportionately more muscle and 
less fat than their legs. Others who are on 
their feet a great deal, but take little exercise, 
are often found with relatively slender and 
muscular legs, while body and arms are very 
fleshy. 

A large number of people, while of seemly 
proportions in other respects, grow an abdomen 
that is exceedingly ugly and becomes in time 
a great inconvenience. This is because, while 
the general activity of the person is consider- 
able, their abdomen is kept free from muscular 
action. The worship of the stomach renders 
people who like to live well extremely jealous 
of anything that disturbs the region of the 
stomach and digestive organs. Perhaps eating 
excessively renders them continually cautious 
about bending, and at the first signs of a pro- 
truding abdomen in a person otherwise slender 
the protrusion is patted and petted as a kind of 
symbol of health, when, in fact, it is sometimes, 
if not very often, a threatening sign. It is at 
least a prophecy of too much fat, and as such 
should be looked at askance. 



9& THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

Instead of coddling the abdominal region it 
is a duty to keep this region as much alive witb 
good muscles as any other part of the body. 
Where muscles are healthy excessive fat can- 
not live. Thus the most direct way of remov- 
ing fat from the abdomen is to establish a 
healthy system of muscle there. As the mus- 
cles grow the fat diminishes. A man may box 
and fence, and even walk, without losing his 
terrible abdominal accumulation ; but if he 
centres his efforts at muscular exertion on the 
abdomen itself the fat cannot stand the attack 
and will gradually disappear. 

To regain muscular control of the abdomen 
after the control has once been lost is no easy 
matter. The ability to contract the abdomen 
observed in persons properly conditioned seems 
wholly impossible to a person with much fat. 
It is only by slow degrees that this control 
can be regained. 

The reflex action of health in the abdominal 
muscles, ana tne proper exercise of these mus- 
cles in connection with those of the spinal and 
pelvic regions, will be immediate and consider- 
able. All the digestive tonics that were ever 



THE TREATMENT OF OBESITY. 91 




FIG. 19. 
Showing fatty abdomen and extent 
of redaction necessary under training. 



92 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

invented cannot compete with muscular ac- 
tivity in the digestive region as a means of 
driving away ills in this region. As a direct 
means of accomplishing this end the treatment 
of the abdomen itself is obviously better than 
exercising in a general way, and infinitely 
better, of course, than the most heroic system 
of dieting. 

One who follows conscientiously the exer- 
cises outlined in the preceding chapters, and 
who preserves a general activity of the muscles 
of the body, can never become corpulent, and 
for those who have just begun to acquire more 
than a proper or comfortable proportion of 
fatty material in the body, these general exer- 
cises will be sufficient to check and repair the 
damage. But in this chapter I have in mind 
those who are too corpulent for comfort and 
whose immediate concern is in reducing their 
weight. For these the following series of ex- 
ercises has been arranged : 

First — Contract the abdominal muscles and 
endeavor to draw the abdomen in and out, 
without breathing, until entire control of the 



THE TREATMENT OF OBESITY. 93 

muscles is secured. If at the beginning it is 
found impossible to use the muscles in this way 
press in the abdomen with the hands as far as 
possible, and while holding it thus, take several 
long breaths, resisting any temptation to allow 
the abdomen to move with the breathing. 
Pursue this plan until the abdomen can be 
drawn in and released by the action of the 
muscles and without the assistance of the 
hands. 

Second — Take the correct standing position 
(as nearly as may be possible), and straighten- 
ing the arms bring them forward and upward 
as far as they may be carried without hol- 
lowing the back. In reaching loosen all 
the muscles of the shoulders that will allow 
the fullest extension of the arms. The reach 
should be made forward and upward without 
removing the heels from the floor, and should 
be accompanied by a long breath. The motion 
should be repeated about ten times in a minute 
and will be found to have a very beneficial 
effect on the neck, shoulders and chest, while 
strengthening the lungs. 



94 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 




FIG. 20. 

Showing fatty abdomen as distended in bending without control 

ot muscles. 



THE TREATMENT OF OBESITY. 95 




FTG. 2z. 

Illustrating third cxcrclst. 



96 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

Third — Clasp the hands over the abdomen, 
drawing it in to the utmost; take a long breath 
and bend at the hips until the body (without 
bending the back) is at right angles with the 
legs as in Fig. 21. Straightening again, the 
breath should be released without relaxation of 
the abdomen This motion should be repeated 
ten or fifteen times in a minute. Its influence 
will be valuable in establishing a control over 
the muscles. 

Fourth — Swinging exercises, as explained 
on pages 73 and 74. 

Fifth — Swinging and bending exercise as 
described in Figs. 15 and 16. With a person 
of much flesh it will be impossible to touch the 
floor as in Fig. 16. But stoop in the general 
direction shown by the figure, and carry the 
movement as far as may be possible. Before 
stooping contract the abdomen, especially 
avoiding the tendency to distend it in reaching 
over. 

Sixth — Lie flat on the back, with the hands 
across the abdomen, take a long breath, and 
raise the legs (with knee joints stiffened) until 



THE TREATMENT OF OBESITY. 97 

they reach right angles with the body. This 
must be practiced without arching the back or 
allowing the pelvis to leave the floor. 

Seventh — Lie in the same position with the 
feet under the edge of a sofa, or some other 
object that may hold the feet against the floor, 
and, without the assistance of hands or elbows, 
raise the body into a sitting posture, at the 
same time contracting the abdomen. 

Eighth — In the standing position : Raise 
one knee after the other in exaggeration of the 
action of going up stairs, keeping the body 
meanwhile perfectly erect, and practice until 
the knees can strike the chest. The exercise 
will be very beneficial v\ reducing flesh on legs 
and abdominal region. 

Ninth — Dropping on the heels as described 
on page 79. 

Tenth — Bending and touching floor as de- 
scribed on pages 63 and 65. A person of much 
flesh can only attempt this movement, but re- 
peated practice will steadily increase the ability 
to bend. Have in mind here, as in all other 



9 8 



THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 




THE TREATMENT OF OBESITY. 99 

exercises, to keep muscular control of the ab- 
domen. Such habits will gradually diminish 
its size. 

Eleventh — Neck motions as described on 
pages 77 and 78. 

Twelfth — Lie face downward on the floor 
— or, in consideration of that protrusive paunch — 
get on the hands and knees, then extend the 
body on hands and toes as in Fig. 22. Keep 
the body perfectly rigid — not permitting the 
abdomen to sag and not bending the hips up- 
ward to lighten the strain on the muscles. To 
take this position for a few seconds is all that 
very heavy persons will be able to do at the 
beginning. The exercise itself consists in low- 
ering the suspended body by the bending of 
the arms until the face touches the floor, and 
the effort should be repeated until this move- 
ment can be accomplished several successive 
times. 

All that has been said in previous chapters 
about the carriage of the body will apply with 
equal if not greater force in the case of corpu- 



IOO THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

lent people. Persistently subdue the abdomen 
and give the prominence to the chest. Walk 
with the whole body, and do not move as if 
afraid of jarring some internal machinery. 
Give the hips free play, and in walking — the 
more of this the better— practice the contrac- 
tion of the waist muscles. In this way a con- 
tinuous training — the only training that is 
effectual — is kept up, and the result will be 
immediate and lasting. 

It is to be remembered that all the fat 
of the abdomen is not superficial like most of 
the other fat of the body, but is largely inter- 
nal. Yet this internal fat is susceptible of re- 
duction by pressure and exercises, and should 
not be encouraged to increase in bulk. 



TRAINING FOR WOMEN. 101 



VIII. 
TRAINING FOR WOMEN. 

I T has already been suggested in these chap- 
ters that the exercises outlined applied as 
well to the training of women as to the training 
of men. I do not think any of the exercises 
described need be forbidden the gentler sex. 
The muscular and bone systems of men and 
of women are so much alike that what is good 
exercise for one is, except in cases of partic- 
ular weaknesses, good exercise for the other. 
There are, however, certain of these exercises 
that women, especially if their health is not 
fair, should enter on with caution. This is all 
the admonition that need be made. Avoid the 
chances of shock to the pelvic region. Avoid 
also the chance of strain. If an exercise seems 
to make a great demand on any of the muscles, 
acquire perfection in that exercise by degrees, 



102 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

being content to gradually acquire control ol 
the stiffened fibres and joints. 

This suggestion would be unnecessary if so 
large a proportion of woman kind did not 
neglect the simplest principles of bodily health. 
The "weaker" sex would occupy no such 
position of relative weakness if natural laws 
were followed. If women must, as is so freely 
claimed, remain physically short of man's 
strength, there is no reason why the disparity 
should remain so great as it often is. Where 
women lead an active life their strength and 
endurance comes remarkably close to the 
strength and endurance of the other sex, and 
in the control of their own systems may readily 
under development excel the other sex. In 
other words, tradition has more to do with the 
"weakness" of women than has nature. 

It is very doubtful whether very much can 
be done for the development of physical 
strength and the higher health in women until 
something is done toward materially reforming 
women's clothing. I think I hear the reader 
say, "More harping on dress reform !" But the 
harping must be kept up until the shackles of 



TRAINING FOR WOMEN. IO3 

badly designed clothing are stricken from long 
suffering womankind. Then profitable training 
may begin. 

At the very threshold of healthful develop- 
ment is the obstacle of the corset. Yes, I know 
that the corset is not so tight as it used to be. 
Perhaps women no longer lash their corset lace 
to the bedpost and throw their weight against 
it. But even a snugly fastened corset is an in- 
jury. Is not the proposition to remove the 
corset met by the suggestion that "we could 
not hold ourselves up without it ?" There lies 
the mischief. A corset that supports the back, 
that keeps the back from supporting itself, is 
antagonizing the first principle of physical de- 
velopment — the perfect muscular possession of 
the body. It is quite clear from what I have 
said about carrying the body that any such 
system can make no terms with the corset. 
For the corset as a bust support there are now 
a score of excellent substitutes. Women might 
reasonably distrust all " supports " save when 
there is no evasion of this method. In very 
slender women, with slight bust measure, noth- 
ing aids development like honest chest expan- 



104 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

sion and the strengthening and enlarging of 
breast muscles. The entire region of the chest 
is rendered flabby and unhealthy by any sup- 
port of the central region of the body. On the 
other hand, fleshy women tempt increased flesh 
in refusing to develop the torso muscles, by 
incasing themselves in e nervating corsets that 
"hold them up" and foster increased fat. 

In the case of the bust it is of importance to 
remember that there is here, as in all other 
parts of the body, a muscular system. The 
muscles of this region are, of course, almost 
invariably unlocated by their owner, and most 
supports soon leave them unused also. Now, 
by persistent effort a control over these mus- 
cles may be established until it*will be possible 
to voluntarily contract and relax them, with 
the result that a sunken and flabby bust maybe 
made full and firm. Thus, unless she is abso- 
lutely deformed, there is no reason why a 
woman should not develop and mold her 
entire form by simply acquiring muscular 
control of the parts deficient in contour. The 
gaining of this control requires a distinct effort 
of will, but the results surely justify the effort 



TRAINING FOR WOMEN. IO5 

Corset wearing has a tendency to protrude the 
abdomen if the old fashioned kind is worn, or to 
unduly compress it if the straight front variety 
is used. The illustration on next page preaches 
a better sermon that can be put in words. 

It has already been said that the corset has 
forced women to breathe somewhat better than 
men, but women are not less under the neces- 
sity of cultivating deep breathing — long breath* 
ing. The girdle corset now worn is a great ad* 
vance over the former high corset, in that it per- 
mits much greater freedom in breathing, and 
consequently cultivates more vigorous bodies. 
Fortunately there is every reason to believe that 
the corset is going out of fashion. A great many 
physicians, by way of rebuke, perhaps, to ex- 
aggerative remarks by those who have sought 
to fight the corset, are inclined to pooh-pooh 
the idea of its dangers. Of exaggeration there 
has been plenty, but the truth remains that the 
corset has exerted and does exert not only a 
direct deforming influence, but an indirect de- 
forming influence on the whole body. It 
threatens the very basis of health, a ready cir- 
culation of the blood. The distended abdo- 



io6 



THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 









Fig. 23 

The first figure shows the natural position, in which 
the spine is strong and graceful in curve, the chest 
strengthens, the bust is enlarged by the development of 
the muscles, and the general grace and health of the 
body is greatly increased. 

The second figure shows the position fostered by the 
old-fashioned corset, where the muscles of chest and 
abdomen become flaccid through lack of proper use. 

The third figure shows the position into which the 
body is forced by the modern straight- front corset, and 
the consequent exaggerated forward curvature of the 
spine. 

The fact that corsets are loose enough not to interfere 
with the breathing will not prevent the deformities 
naturally resulting from any contrivance for "holding! 
up" the body. 



TRAINING FOR WOMEN. 10/ 

men so shocking to women, and the great in- 
crease of flesh on the legs and feet, are often 
directly due to the seizures of the corset. The 
corset is naturally a constant obstacle to free 
play of the body, to facility in stooping and 
turning, and tends generally to curb the ex- 
ercise of the sex. 

Among women who have borne children, 
and particularly among women who have 
reached or passed middle age, the distended 
abdomen often brings much distress. Nothing 
certainly could be uglier, more utterly destruc- 
tive of grace or distinction in manner. Tight- 
ened corsets, that ludicrous last resort of the 
corpulent, only increases the difficulty. The 
only direct and effective way of fighting this 
corpulence is, as I have said in the preceding 
chapters, by getting muscular control of the 
abdomen. Cast aside the corset and practice 
the contraction and expansion of the muscles 
while holding the breath, and follow all of those 
exercises that keep active the muscles of the 
pelvic and abdominal region. Do not be afraid 
to bend the body. 

There is no beneficial exercise that women 



108 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

so seldom indulge themselves in as high reach- 
ing. The modern one-piece dresses and roomy 
shirt waists permit reaching upward, so that 
women can indulge in the luxury of mus- 
cular freedom in this direction. Reaching may 
be wrenching, and women should not, in act- 
ing upon this suggestion, rashly strain them- 
selves in any way. High reaching with both 
hands, upward and forward, is very beneficial 
for both slender and fleshy people. This ex- 
ercise is actually combined with the breathing 
exercises given in the chapter on breathing. 
It should be frequently tried and will be found 
very strengthening. 

Women are often ridiculed in their efforts 
to throw a ball. They have defended them- 
selves by arguing that their collar bone is 
shorter than man's. The statement is true, but 
women are more hampered in all such efforts 
by their want of familiarity with their shoulder 
muscles than by any brevity of the clavicle- 
Practice thoroughly the exercises tending to 
develop the shoulders and to increase the ex- 
tension of the arms — not for the sake of being 
able to throw a ball, but for the sake of the 



TRAINING FOR WOMEN. IO9 

comfort and strength derived from increased 
versatility in the shoulder. 

An allusion has already been made to the 
vicious tendency of badly fitting shoes. Wo- 
men are unquestionably nearer an abandon- 
ment of the corset than of the tight shoe. They 
admit that the Venus de Milo has a large 
waist. But artists who are generous in the 
waist-line are slow to wean from the curious 
tradition that the smallness of a foot is a mark 
of beauty. Probably ninety-five per cent, of 
women of all classes are suffering from small 
or badly designed shoes. Small shoes discour- 
age walking and standing, and those who stand 
and walk little can never have a graceful car- 
riage. If shoes are big enough the height of 
the heel will be a less serious affair. 

It is unfortunate for many women and girls 
that skimpy skirts reveal the fact that they 
walk very badly. " Small shoes" is written 
as plainly as it could be written in the gait of 
the average woman. The direct influence of 
tight shoes on the circulation is very great. 
When we consider the indirect influence, in- 
duced by the retarded exercise, it is hard to 



110 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM.. 

credit the perverse vitality of this wretched 
superstition. 

Women snould walk more. They should 
not take a cab or a street car to travel half a 
dozen or a dozen streets. Their endurance in 
shopping is often a surprise to men. But the 
endurance is an illusion. Men intensely in- 
terested for the same length of time would 
appear as little fatigued. The fact is that women 
wreck their nervous system at " bargain coun- 
ters." They should be able to bear the physical 
strain of standing, but their general strength is 
so poorly developed that they are actually un- 
fit to do the feats they call on their nervous 
vitality to perform. 

It seems particularly necessary to ask wo- 
men in walking to turn the toes out. The in- 
toed proclivity among women is very curious, 
and has increased the tendency to an inward 
turn of the knees. The value of an outward 
turn of the toes lies not merely in any theory 
of force, nor in the increased strengthening of 
the legs, but in the influence on the pelvis. An 
in-toed habit encourages a contraction of the 
forward pelvic region — an effect whose undesir- 
abilty need not be pointed out. 



TRAINING FOR WOMEN. Ill 

Women should, in fact, cultivate all the 
exercises that might give suppleness to their 
bodies. There can be no grace without sup- 
pleness. That complete flexibility in all the 
muscles of the body which the exercises enu- 
merated have been calculated to secure is 
absolutely necessary to the charm of carriage 
which distinguishes one woman above another. 
Unused muscles, resulting fromi an absurd idea 
of the essential restrictions of a woman's posi- 
tion, are worse than no muscles, because they 
are irritated under tension and retard the 
movement begun by the muscles that are fit 
to use. 

I believe I am the holder of somewhat radi- 
cal views about the physical — not to say of the 
mental — possibilities of women. I have seen 
in China, I have seen in Germany, I have seen 
in England types of women, reared under cer- 
tain conditions, that led me to doubt very much 
whether the long accepted physical inferiority 
of woman is indeed a fact. If it is admitted 
that there is no essential boundary to woman's 
intellectual possibilities, if she is no longer held 
to have an uneven chance with the other sex 



112 THE CKECKLEY SYSTEM. 

in matters of the mind, I think it is probably 
true that she has an absolutely even chance 
with man in the development of the body. I 
would ask those women who have, perhaps, 
rested too greatly on the tradition of necessary 
" weakness, " to take tms suggestion into con- 
sideration 



A WORD ABOUT CHILDREN. 113 



IX. 
A WORD ABOUT CHILDREN. 

I I ^HEN an adult undertakes to train 
**^ himself, begins to gain control of his 
muscular system and to " get strong," a large 
part of his labor is expended in undoing the 
evil of his previously acquired habits. He has 
to unbuild before he can build. 

The muscular system has here many re- 
semblances to the brain. Indeed, the muscles 
have actually a memory distinct from functions 
of the brain. Muscular memory is a physio- 
logical fact, and a very interesting and signifi- 
cant fact. Thus in the same manner that first 
impressions affect the brain most permanently, 
first habits in the muscular system cling most 
tenaciously to them. Habits of walking and 
carriage formed in childhood are very difficult 



114 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

to shake off. In fact, they are all Iiut impossi- 
ble to get rid of entirely save by serious men- 
tal effort. 

Nothing is more important, therefore, than 
that children should be taught the general 
principles of right development. It is a mere 
makeshift to bring forward calisthenics. Noth- 
ing could be at the same time more amus- 
ing and more pathetic than to stand in a 
crowded class-room and watch the so-called 
exercises perfunctorily performed by the 
pupils during a few minutes of each day. But 
a small minority of the children give any vigor 
or meaning to the few insignificant movements 
of the arms. Most of the boys, and almost all 
of the girls, are found making merely superficial 
movements, with no sense of the meaning and 
no feeling of exhilaration. If anything has 
ever been said to the children about breathing, 
the chances are that no tangible impression of 
the matter has been portrayed. If any- 
thing has been said about the carriage of the 
body, the instructions have been confined to 
an injunction to "keep back the shoulders." 
In a nervous effort to keep back the shoulders 



A WORD ABOUT CHILDREN. I15 

children are often found with hollowed backs 
and shoulder blades driven in against the spine. 

What is wanted, of course, is not backward 
carriage of the shoulders, although this has 
some utility, but a forward carriage of the chest. 
The shoulder should not be drawn back of the 
hip joint line. There is no force in shoulders 
excessively drawn backward. If they are far 
enough back to give the fullest freedom to the 
development of the chest, they are in a position 
to acquire all necessary strength. 

Most children are wont to protrude the 
abdomen in standing, and when school begins 
the shoulders soon come forward. Teach a 
child to assume the correct position, giving 
up whatever time may be necessary to teach 
the proper line of chest and shoulders. It 
will soon forget about the correct position, but, 
when reminded by a touch or word, will soon 
learn to assume it, if only for a few moments, 
and the habit will gradually be formed. That 
the child should know how to stand correctly, 
and should assume the position at intervals, 
will of itself have a good influence. 

Naturally, breathing is the most important 



Il6 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

of all features of training. Most children need 
very little studied exercise, but they all need 
specific and continued instruction in breathing. 
Nature has not provided for a natural develop- 
ment of the mind, and we have no right to 
assume that the body of its own accord, par- 
ticularly under an artificial condition of life, 
acquires right habits of performing all its func- 
tions. Induce the children to take long breaths. 
Make them take a pride in swelling the upper 
chest and in drawing the abdomen in and out 
while holding the breath. Induce them to take 
deep breaths while dressing in the morning and 
again before going to bed, if not oftener. These 
habits develop by their own movement if once 
fairly begun. Lungs fully inflated at regular 
intervals will seem to call for inflation during 
these intervals, and involuntary deep breaths 
will, as I have said, gradually increase in 
frequency to the immense improvement of the 
child's lung power and general health. The 
sternurn> or breast bone, is, in a child, not only 
divided into eight pieces, but its whole material 
is soft, and very little training will give a fine, 
swelling chest to a youngster that might other- 



A WORD ABOUT CHILDREN. 117 

wise grow up flat and weak in that region. 
Watch the child in sitting. It need not be kept 
stiffly seated upright. Children should know 
their position and should be able to assume it 
for a few moments on occasion. But they 
should be allowed the greatest possible free- 
dom of posture and movement. If they bend 
over a table in sitting, teach them to bend from 
the hips and not from the middle of the back. 
In the end this proper position will give them 
much less fatigue. Do not restrict their variety 
of movement under false theories of propriety. 

The superstition about women's relative 
weakness begins to show itself in the training 
of children. Girls are frequently guarded 
against exercise that they need as greatly as 
boys, and at every critical period of their life 
thereafter they pay in suffering for the mis- 
guided consideration of those who had their 
training in hand. The so-called " lady-like " 
demeanor of girls is a thing to excite impa- 
tience. Girls brought up in strait-jackets of 
physical propriety — physical freedom will hurt 
nobody's " manners" — can never have the grace 
of deportment, the variety of poise, the readiness 



Il8 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

in emergency that will belong to girls of liberal 
physical training. 

As I have said, children need very little 
studied exercise aside from the breathing, and 
nothing artificial is a substitute for outdoor 
sport. Nothing makes better lungs than run- 
ning and climbing. Excessive running is as 
injurious as a,ny other excess. But frequent 
and easy running is one of the finest of exer- 
cises. The opening of school yards for games 
will help to improve the health of the pres- 
ent generation. But country children are less 
under the ban of either false ideas of decorum 
or of restricting surroundings. City children, 
who do not find fences to get over, do little 
climbing. If it were possible to give children 
climbing — and arm climbing as well as leg 
climbing — they would be tremendously benefited 
in the lung region and in their entire physique. 

Children are particularly in need of diverse 
exercise. They should not be allowed to 
acquire hobbies, that keep them in one 
line of exercise to the exclusion of other 
useful movements. The natural tendency of 
the body is to distribute strength, but habits 



A WORD ABOUT CHILDREN. II9 

and surroundings are continually interfering 
with this symmetrical growth. If children are 
made to do moderate exercise at spading or 
shoveling or sweeping, the effect upon their 
back will be a reward for the efforts made by 
both trainer and trained. Useful exercise thus 
ranks above all others, because it means some- 
thing and has a double influence. 

It seems scarcely necessary to speak of the 
importance of proper clothing. Children that 
are so well dressed during play hours that they 
are constantly occupied in an effort not to bring 
home any marks of dirt are in a pitiable plight 
indeed. Children should have play suits as 
well as school suits and should be forced to 
change from one to the other at the proper 
hour. Neither girls nor boys should be com- 
pelled to think of clothes at all during play 
hours. Imagine boys often or twelve avoiding 
kneeling positions to prevent new trousers from 
bagging at the knees ! As for the iniquity of 
putting corsets on growing girls, that crime has 
been too often condemned to require comment 
here. 

In his new work on " Hygiene for Child- 



120 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

hood," Dr. Francis H. Rankin says: "Housing 
children during the winter months, as a pre- 
caution against them taking cold, is a very- 
great mistake. Very few colds are contracted 
in the open air if the feet, limbs and body are 
sufficiently protected, and if the children are 
permitted to follow out their own inclinations 
of running, skipping and having free motion of 
the arms, and are not exposed for too long a 
time to the cold. When, however, they are 
compelled to walk like ' little gentlemen and 
ladies/ even when bundled in furs, the body 
soon becomes chilled if the weather is very 
cold, and some disturbance of the system fol- 
lows. Children should be accustomed to daily 
exercise in the open air in all weathers, unless, 
of course, it is very stormy or the cold is severe, 
and even when delicate they should not be 
deprived of the tonic effects of outdoor air, and 
of strengthening the muscles by exercise in it. 
The first effect of cold air on the system is a 
tonic, as may be seen by the bright color in the 
cheeks and a feeling of exhilaration after a 
walk on a crisp day in autumn. Prolonged 
exposure to cold, on the other hand, is very 



A WORD ABOUT CHILDREN. 121 

depressing ; delicate children, therefore, should 
not remain too long out of doors if the weather 
is severe, or if it is very windy ; for high winds, 
if cool, rapidly abstract the animal heat, and 
are also depressing. If a child is chilled or 
cold, it should instantly be brought into the 
house to be warmed and sent out again — taking 
the fresh air and outdoor exercise in install 
ments, as it were, instead of all at once. Never 
permit a child to remain out of doors when cry- 
ing from a cold." The last admonition might 
at first seem almost superfluous, but is doubtless 
not as entirely so as at first appears Many 
indiscretions are committed on the theory of 
" hardening" children. 

Those who have the care of children should 
endeavor to simply guide rather than restrict 
their exercise. They are certain to begin 
jumping sooner or later, and will certainly, 
until they have learned by experience, jump 
from points higher than they should. To avoid 
the chance of serious injury to the system teach 
little children to bend the knees and lean for- 
ward when jumping, that they may not seri- 
ously jar the spine. This may rank as precau- 



122 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

tionary training. The best exercise for chil- 
dren is their natural gamboling. Studied sport 
has not half the value. Tumbling about brings 
all their muscles into play, produces a general 
glow in their bodies and wearies them evenly. 

It should not be necessary at this day to 
emphasize the value of sleep to children, A 
child that is kept up an hour too late, and ex- 
cited during that hour, will need a good deal of 
training to overcome the bad influence of the 
indiscretion. In fact, if children sleep proper- 
ly, eat properly and breathe properly the rest of 
their training is scarcely worth talking of. 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 123 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 

I F, as we are so often assured, one man's food 
* is another man's poison, it is undoubtedly- 
true that a prescription of exercise for one man 
or woman may be less or more than another 
man or woman may require. It is utterly im- 
possible to set down rules that might be applied 
to all people alike. We may count with a good 
deal of certainty upon particular characteristics 
in the human form and organization, and exer- 
cise is a medicine of such universal application 
that we may count definitely upon certain re- 
sults from its adoption. But we cannot say 
when and for how long the reader of these lines 
shall follow the specific exercises. The average 
person, particularly if he or she leads a busy 
life, will probably find it an advantage to spend 
at least fifteen minutes over particular exercises 



124 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

in the morning before fully dressing, and fifteen 
minutes again in the evening before retiring, 
with another period of special exercise in the 
afternoon if possible, and not too close to the 
evening meal hour. Of course light exercise is 
no detriment immediately before a meal, but if 
the exhilaration of practice should tempt rather 
vigorous movements prolonged for some time, 
the fatigue might not improve the appetite and 
would scarcely be beneficial in other respects, 
The entire series of movements outlined in the 
preceding chapters, if each is repeated ten, 
fifteen or twenty times, does not occupy very 
much time, and will leave the whole body in a 
pleasant glow, with no located fatigue. The 
constitutional difference between one person 
and another will render exercises much easier 
to one than another. Consequently it would 
be unwise to direct that any exercise should be 
practiced any more frequently than is rendered 
feasible by the muscular condition of the parts 
called into play. 



I hope I have made it plain that the carriage 
and management of the body, between the 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 125 

periods of specific exercise, is of more impor- 
tance than the exercises themselves, and above 
all that proper breathing is the very corner- 
stone of physical strength. Our habits do more 
to form our bodies as well as our minds than 
the conscious efforts at improvement. So that 
if we can get in the habit of taking long breaths, 
and then gradually increase the length of our 
respiratory movement, and the volume of air 
thus taken in at a breath, we shall obviously do 
more than if we arranged to merely exercise 
the lungs at stated times. Stated exercises, 
however, have this value, that they give special 
movement to muscles and organs not common- 
ly brought into play. Exercises, in other 
words, would be unnecessary to a person who 
lived a life of such physical activity that all the 
muscles and organs were certain to be called 
upon in the course of a day. Very few people 
actually fulfill this condition. There are pro- 
fessional acrobats who come very close to do- 
ing it. The postman is a pretty well exercised 
man, though his arms are lightly trained. 
Many mechanics have excellent exercises for 
the arms, legs and backs, but nothing to 



126 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

strengthen the lungs and chest. The re- 
sult is that they often yield to consumption in 
middle life while bearing many signs of muscu- 
lar strength. It is for every person who wishes 
to train himself to determine his own defi- 
ciencies as growing out of constitutional defects 
or previous and present habits of life. Having 
ascertained these deficiencies, it is his duty to 
set about building up what remains unbuilt or 
tearing down defective elements. General 
health is often threatened by one imperfection 
in the system. It is customary to say that 
everybody has his weak spot. The difficulty is 
that most people have more than one. But it 
does not follow that these weak spots might 
not be banished by special effort. 



" Why," I have heard it asked, " do doctors 
give so much medicine for complaints that 
might be remedied by natural means ? Why 
do they not tell the patient how to cure him 
self, or, better still, to keep himself well ?" The 
reason is, I believe, that most physicians weary 
of perpetual admonition. Their suggestions 
are not received until danger appears in actual 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 127 

illness. A person who is fairly well smiles at 
the doctor's criticism. When he is on his back 
the doctor's word is law. The mystery of a 
prescription has some charm in it. Above all, 
doctors do not give patients directions for 
working out their own salvation without medi- 
cine, because they know that in an immense 
and hopeless majority of cases the patient will 
never take the trouble. They follow directions 
for a week and abandon their good resolutions. 
The doctor's practical an-' directly applicable 
remedy does not appeal to the imagination. 
There is no Latin in it. 



The newspapers have recently contained 
some talk the purport of which was that some 
prominent elderly statesmen, bankers and business 
men kept marvekmsly good health without tak- 
ing any more exercise than they could help. 
Some of these individuals may have kept very 
good health, but they have not done so because 
they have taken no exercise. They have kept 
well in spite of the fact, and observers should 
keep this in mind. But, notwithstanding the 
assertion, most of these mentioned are very 



128 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

active men. Their activity may not take the 
form of hard riding or walking, but they are 
nevertheless active. The physiologists tell us 
that the reason a cat keeps slender in spite of 
her general outward inactivity is, that her mus- 
cular system is, in fact, constantly active. If 
she does not make many violent movements, she 
is almost constantly on the alert. The nervous 
activity of some people wastes without building 
up. With others the quiet activity produces 
much the same effect as outward activity. The 
actual explanation of good health! with little ap- 
parent activity is probably a union of highly per- 
fect organs and a fortunate habit of carrying and 
using the body, together with instinctively cor- 
rect breathing. This habit, natural to some-<- 
and a very few — must be acquired by the ma- 
jority like any other element of education. 
Peculiar natural gifts should not mislead the 
majority into carelessness. 



From the theory advanced it will be clear 
that the general hints which I have scattered 
through these chapters are quite as important 
to the perfection of training under this system 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. I29 

as the specific instructions which I have given 
in connection with the exercise. In all candor 
it must be said that there is no substitute for 
taking pains. Bad habits are generally stronger 
than good habits, and control of the muscular 
system of the body will in many cases mean a 
lively struggle with long established habits. 
The will, which possesses so marvelous a con- 
trol over the muscles, must be brought to bear 
upon injurious habits of walking, of standing, 
of sitting and of breathing. It must render those 
who would be strong and well persistent in 
their treatment of the difficulty. It must force 
the body, in the face of hurry-scurry or of 
lassitude, to yield itself to necessary special 
exercises. 



Head-tired people and muscle-tired people 
are in two different classes. What is recreation 
for one is not recreation for the other. It is 
notorious that head-tired people are likely to 
shrink from the very exercise that they should 
seek. Head-weariness produces a tendency to 
avoid all initiatory movements. At the same 
time the shrinking of the head-tired person is, to 



I30 *\ THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

a certain extent, prompted by a necessary cau- 
tion. The exercise taken up by a person who 
has been exercising the brain without the body 
should be exercise that animates the body 
without taxing the brain. It should be exer- 
cise of a kind requiring little fatiguing thought, 
though the changed attention has its value in 
relieving the brain. Exercise taken by a person 
who has been undergoing no serious tax on the 
brain system might profitably keep up a lively 
union between the intelligence and the mus- 
cles. Stimulus will help a worried mind, but 
when the mind has performed a great deal of 
detailed labor excitement of any kind is not a 
good thing. Sleep is much better. 



It is to be noped that no new system of 
training will ever send walking out of fashion. 
Walking is in every respect a beautiful exercise, 
especially when the walker walks as he should, 
breathing slowly through the nose. Running, 
as I have said, is an exercise of the highest 
value to the lungs. When I run for a few 
streets on a city thoroughfare, the populace 
look after me as if I were a " freak/' or as if J 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 131 

were making off with something not belonging 
to me. To excite notice and even suspicion is 
not encouraging to the average enthusiast. 
People living in a city are constantly under sur- 
veillance. They are not completely at liberty. 
Mind and body are under the restrictions im- 
posed by the crowd. But men, yes, and wo- 
men, should run. Occasionally they do run 
in great excitement, and in no proper way, to 
catch a street car or a ferry boat, and reach 
their seat breathless, heated and uncomfortable. 
This is not profitable running. If people kept 
themselves in trim for light running it would 
be no such disaster to hurry for the car. 



People who complain at a little climbing 
should be reminded that the exercise, in any 
kind of moderation, is highly beneficial. Noth- 
ing could be better for the lungs. A recollec- 
tion of this fact will actually make labor lighter 
for those who keep it in mind. The flight of 
steps leading to an elevated railroad station 
should afford only reasonable exercise to a 
person. Stair-climbing is, indeed, a livelier 
exercise than at first appears, and the fatigue it 



132 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

brings upon people with weak legs and feeble 
lungs is not surprising. The weight carried in 
mounting an ordinary flight of steps is equal to 
a very considerable exertion of lifting. People 
who are not strong should thus not climb stairs 
too rashly, while they might make it an admir- 
able means of building up their strength. In 
all such movements take the exercise without 
sudden or taxing motions. Step firmly and carry 
the chest free so that long, full breathing may 
buoy the body in its journey. Attention to the 
suggestions of this book will take a good many 
of the terrors out of stair climbing. 



The shoulders should not be held back so 
far as to be brought out of line with the hip 
joints. To carry them as far back as possible, 
and at high tension, does not improve the force 
or beauty of the figure, though certain actors 
and military men seek to make themselves 
imposing in this way. The chest must be given 
prominence on its own account, and the shoul- 
ders, when held far enough back to give the 
chest free development, find a natural and com- 
fortable centre. 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 1 33 

Any tailor will confess that few if any of his 
customers have shoulders that are held precise- 
ly alike. The dressmaker tells the same story. 
Almost everybody has a low shoulder. This 
is the result of habits more or less complicated. 
Many people acquire a habit of contracting 
certain muscles when walking. One shoulder 
is held slightly higher than the other, the 
head is carried a little to one side, and one 
foot has slightly the advantage of the other in 
the labor of walking. Sometimes this trait is 
carried to grotesque extremes until a positive 
and palpable deformity is the outgrowth. In 
nervous people these habits are particularly 
frequent, and are observed in standing and sit- 
ting, and walking. In the growth of the body y 
in the waste and renewal of tissue, such habits 
are exaggerated by a steady development. 
Often they are the result of seemingly trifling 
habits like leaning to one side while sitting, or 
carrying a valise, or a book, or anything of the 
kind always in one hand. To counteract these 
tendencies cultivate the habit of alternating 
the use of the hands and arms. Watch for 
tendencies toward right or left-sided move- 



134 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

ments in sitting. Endeavor to adopt a changed 
position, which will give a relief to the wearied 
muscles of the desk-worker. To correct a 
want of uniformity in the shoulders adopt this 
plan : Several times a day lift the low shoulder 
as high as possible, holding it there, for a few 
moments. A regular practice of this movement 
will slowly increase the height of the shoulder, 
and in a few weeks the shoulders will be found 
to come into harmony. A shoulder may be 
too high as well as too low, though this is less 
often the case, and the exercise in such a con- 
dition should be to draw down the high shoul- 
der while the other is elevated, giving particu- 
lar attention to the shoulder that most needs 
correction. The trouble with the high shoul- 
der is probably a continued contraction of the 
muscles under a nervous habit. Relaxation is 
then all that need be sought. Endeavor (as I 
have previously urged,) to develop firm and 
self-reliant shoulders. There are many mus- 
cles in the upper back, shoulders and chest of 
which you have never discovered your 
ownership. 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 135 

The simple stretching of the body is a great 
boon. How delightful to extend all the limbs 
and arch the back after long confinement ! 
Stretching movements are very serviceable in 
preserving suppleness. A variation upon ex- 
ercises already suggested might be a purely up- 
ward reach at a wall, first with one hand and 
then the other, and then with both, avoiding, 
of course, harsh straining in the first efforts. 



Of course the best kind of exercise is the 
exercise the body receives in performing some 
useful service. If a person feels that he is get- 
ting some good out a certain kind of work he 
has more enjoyment in that work than if he 
considered it either harmful labor or labor that 
was merely obligatory. It is notorious that 
men will enter with enjoyment on active sport 
that makes a considerable demand upon their 
strength, when a hod of coal hurts their back, 
and a little spading in the garden fills them 
with aches for a week. As a matter of fact, 
too, work done without interest actually strains 
the body more than work enthusiastically per- 
formed. It might, therefore, be commended 



136 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

that people cultivate the habit of themselves 
performing little physical tasks such as might 
ordinarily be relegated to servants or hired 
assistants of other kinds. A woman who sweeps 
and dusts, lifts and moves a little with reason- 
able caution, and makes a couple of beds of a 
morning, has taken exercise in a practical and 
valuable way. A man who does not hesitate 
to move a few office chairs with his own hands, 
who carries a few heavy ledgers, or lends a 
hand (without rashly overtaxing his strength) 
in moving a piece of merchandise, has done 
better than coddle himself all day, and after- 
ward seek artistic measures of repair. In other 
words, exercise by rule need only supple- 
ment the natural exercise, which would be 
better if everybody could manage to get it. 
When once the body is alive, when all the 
muscles are healthy and control of the entire 
system is complete, a very little exercise, if it 
be continuous, is sufficient to keep a person 
healthy and strong. I am no believer in the 
theory of extensive destruction in tissues to 
secure health. This method seems to me to 
threaten the wearing out of the body before it 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 1 3? 

should wear out. It is abnormal. As has been 
suggested, the lower animals keep their strength 
for the most part with light exercise, and some 
of the very strongest with extremely little ani- 
mation of moment. The tendency of hard 
exercise is hard muscles, and hard muscles are 
bad. The body should remain firm, but pliant 
and in most parts soft. It is in the conserva- 
tion of energy, and not in prodigal dissipation 
of energy, that the greatest strength and en- 
durance of the body will always lie. 



Whenever I am asked what sort of gymnas- 
tics should be taken up by those who wish to 
carry exercise beyond the lighter or rudiment- 
ary forms outlined in my system of training I 
have always recommended tumbling, which is, 
after all, nearest to the natural gamboling of 
children and of animals, in what is vaguely 
called the "state of nature." The suggestion 
may seem rather startling to many. « A back 
somersault appears like a very formidable feat 
to many quiet people. But it is not so hard as 
it looks, and there are scores of beneficial feats 
of the body that may be followed with no ap- 



138 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

pliances and with great benefit to the general 
health. 



The more vigorous gymnastics should be 
carried on under an instructor who may render 
the training symmetrical. The series of exer- 
cises outlined in this book will produce a very 
general development of the system, but there are 
exercises upon which the uninstructed may rash- 
ly enter without stopping to consider the chances 
of uneven development. It is a well-known 
principle that gymnastics produce as well as 
cure deformities. The deforming influence of 
fencing carried to excess must be offset by 
special training calculated to give the left side 
a harmonious relation to the right. Left hand 
fencing, well proportioned to the amount of 
fencing done with the right hand, is the best 
of all cures for the mis-balanced condition 
produced by ordinary practice. Boxing, if it is 
not turned into " slugging," is a fine exercise. 
It gives balance and suppleness to the whole 
body. Yet even boxing, if the same hand is 
always used for guarding, and the left shoulder 
is always lifted in the protection of the head, will 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. I39 

produce one-sidedness to a certain degree unless 
off-set by other exercise. To a certain extent 
boxing is an off-set to fencing, the left arm 
being here kept high, where the right arm in 
high in fencing. To a certain extent the left 
shoulder development in boxing is an off-set to 
the prominence of the right shoulder in many- 
other exercises necessary and artificial. In 
rowing the shoulders receive even develop- 
ment. Few exercises are carried to greater 
excess than rowing. The work is very heavy, 
and is frequently carried to dangerous length. 
Rowing properly done, and accompanied by 
proper training in other respects, has a great 
capacity for shoulder and chest development, 
but it is an exercise that demands great discre- 
tion, and is at best liable, in itself, to give an 
uneven development. Wrestling, probably the 
most violent of all exercises, is injudicious for 
most people, unless they are in good condition, 
and in a competition that is fairly even. 



A writer makes an interesting reference to 
Mais of endurance. He says : " Exercise of 
endurance is characterized by the necessity for 



140 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

perfect equilibrium between the intensity of 
muscular effort and the power of resistance of 
the system. Now there is nothing so variable 
as the power of resistance of each individual. 
So that which is for one man an exercise of 
strength, or of speed, becomes for another, 
stronger or better trained, a simple exercise of 
endurance. A canter is an exercise of speed 
for a cart horse, used only to walk ; it is an 
exercise of endurance for a thoroughbred, which 
can sustain this pace all day without stopping. 
Rowing seems an exercise of strength to a man 
who is learning ; after a quarter of an hour he 
is out of breath. For a waterman it is an ex- 
ercise which he can, perhaps, keep up a whole 
day without any fatigue." 



u Staying power " is directly related, yes, 
directly regulated by the strength of the lungs. 
There can be no endurance in a weak-lunged 
person, and strong lungs are thus the first and 
pre-eminent requisite in one who wishes to 
keep strong and be ready to enter to under- 
takings of any kind that tax the physical 
system. I may seem to reiterate a good deal 



SOME PINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 141 

this necessity for lung development as a prime 
factor, but the necessity seems to exist, for few 
modern systems of training are giving anything 
like the necessary attention to direct lung 
training. They talk about big chests but little 
about big lungs. Men with fine looking chests 
often have treacherous lungs, a condition re- 
sulting from a cultivation of superficial strength. 
The chest must be enlarged by the expansion 
of the lungs, and not by muscular distension. 
A chest made full by muscular action is a chest 
traveling on false pretenses. It seems to mean 
fine lungs underneath but two often does not. 



There is a point to be noted in connection 
with the kind of exercise suitable for persons 
of different constitution and different age. 
Young people of ordinary health, and no trou- 
ble with the heart, will enjoy and will profit 
by quick exercise — exercises of speed. But old 
people, or people suffering from debility or 
breathlessness, should cultivate that which 
slowly arouses their system and does not tax 
their systems. Running is good for all who can 
possibly accomplish it, but a long walk is much 



I42 THE CHECRLEY SYSTEM. 

better for a person debilitated by age, illness 
or excesses, and all exercises taken by such 
persons should be slow and firm rather than 
lively. Exercise for such persons should, in 
fact, be persistent rather than vigorous. 



One year of good exercise will do more for a 
woman's beauty than all the lotions and pom- 
ades that were ever invented. Interesting as 
are the changes produced in a man by proper 
physical training, the change in a woman is 
more striking and significant. Exercise seems 
to have a particularly immediate effect on a 
woman's complexion. I have witnessed simply 
marvelous changes in the complexion, form 
and disposition of women under light training. 
I have in mind one well-built girl who carried 
herself poorly, breathed badly and had an un- 
satisfactory complexion. She joined a gymna- 
sium, taking the lighter exercises, and began 
walking a good deal. In a few months a re- 
markable change had been produced. The 
unanimated pose had disappeared, the breath- 
ing was better (though still not what it should 
be, no special training having been directed to 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 143 

to the lungs), and the complexion was so clear 
that one could scarcely credit the change. 
Under my own training I have watched most 
interesting changes as a result of breathing 
exercises alone, and the extent to which locally 
directed exercises have improved forms that 
were considered hopeless would not be believed 
save by observation. 



People suffer a great deal from creduility in 
following this and that random prescription 
about air and exercise without stopping to 
study out the natural bearings of the case. In 
just the same manner as they take up violent 
and unnatural exercises in order to accomplish 
what much milder forms might give them, they 
take sudden and radical means of improving 
their diet and getting fresh air. Probably the 
feeling with regard to hard exercise is that it 
will get them strong in a hurry — a chance that 
precisely suits the American plan of existence. 
The suddenly rich American in the west, who 
bought a whole hotel just to get a sleeping 
place for one night, was the kind of man who 
might plank down a roll of bills and say to 



144 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

some trainer, " See here, I want to be made a 
full-fledged athlete by to-morrow noon !" The 
thing can't be done, of course. In the same 
way people, who have been sleeping all their 
lives with their bedroom window tightly closed, 
hear of some remarkably healthy person who 
invariably opens the whole upper part of his 
window at night. They hear it explained that 
we must have absolutely pure air at night. 
So and so almost sticks his head out of the 
window when he sleeps and wakes up with 
icicles in his beard. Presto ! the hearers pull 
down their windows half way, determined to 
get this remarkable exhilaration at once. 
They have not been breathing ice cold outer 
air all day, but it must be a good thing, for so 
and so is in such remarkable vigor! The 
result, of course, is a very bad cold in the 
head if not something worse. Nature refuses 
to tolerate such surprises. Again, the rough 
and tumble of a Russian bath to a person not 
in condition for the ordeal, may mean a whole 
season of neuralgia. A person with delicate 
ears should never take the cold plunge after 
steam without using cotton to prevent shock to 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 145 

the delicate system of those organs. As for 
dieting, that is too long a story to take up 
here. It seems very easy to persuade people 
that every thing they eat is poison to their 
particular stomach, and the credulous suffer 
many a hungry pang in following out a scheme 
suggested by the last friend they spoke to on 
the subject. Everything but exercise is tried 
in the effort to cure a sluggish stomach. There 
are periodical efforts on the part of the human 
family to "get back to nature," as they call it 
Getting back to nature seems to mean going 
to extremes. The hermit tries going barefoot 
and living on apples and barley. Animals 
have no artificial covering, and men frequently 
make spasmodic efforts to get rid of clothes. 
They get the influenza, but hold fast to the 
theory. The vegetarians, and water-curists, 
and all the other theorists — many of them with 
excellently founded ideas — too often get back 
to nature by quarreling with their own state. 
Few people try getting back to our nature in- 
stead of some abstract kind of animal nature. 
We are what we are, and every system of train- 
ing must begin with us as we are before it can 



146 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

make us anything better. My own plan 
attempts, at least, to build up the human sys- 
tem on the basis of what it already is, and, by 
making the best of what the system already is, 
instead of ignoring its limitations, to build up 
something more enduring. 



A cheerful fact is, that nobody need con- 
sider himself unfit for training. I was born a 
weakling. Nobody thought I was really worth 
rearing. To-day I can lift three men, each 
weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, and 
trot with them for a hundred yards. If I had 
not been born a weakling my family would 
never have taken the trouble to make me, and 
I would never have taken the trouble to make 
myself, physically what I am. If Demosthenes 
had not been a stammerer he might never have 
made himself the greatest orator of Greece. If 
you are weak to-day let your resentment of the 
fact give you the mental strength to make 
yourself physically sound and strong. If you 
are what you are, it is scarcely an exaggera- 
tion to say that you can become what you 
wish to be. 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. I47 

The repugnance to exercise arising from 
mental fatigue, or long inaction, is something 
that must be carefully fought. What is often 
mistaken for physical fatigue is nothing of the 
kind, but rather an opposite effect, the numb 
pain of inactivity. It will frequently be found 
difficult in a person of confining pursuits to 
arise from this state and enter upon even sim- 
ple bodily exercise. But the inclination to sink 
into lassitude must be stubbornly fought 
against. The weariness is of the head and only 
of the body by reflex action. Once aroused 
from this condition a person who starts his 
blood at a quicker pace feels greatly stimulated. 
The body becomes alive again, and all the 
functions of the body and mind give a sense of 
enjoyment. No magic ever worked more agree- 
able results than the quickened action of the 
blood. The body becomes warmer, and with in- 
creased warmth comes increased strength, cour- 
age and perception. The machinery of the brain 
turns out more ideas to the minute under a 
quick pulse than under a slow one. This 
relationship of a quickened circulation to the 
powers of the brain is, perhaps, frequently over- 



148 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

looked. Writers can always take advantage 
of blood influence by introducing exercise 
when the brain force grows weak. In pro- 
longed mental effort recesses filled with good 
general exercise, that starts the entire blood 
system, will always be a better method of 
alleviating the tension and tiding over the dan- 
gerous places than the use of any kind of liquid 
stimulant. When stimulants aid they aid by 
giving heat and artificial activity to the circula- 
tion. Exercise will supply heat in the safest 
manner and leave no drafts to make good on 
the bank account of strength. Stimulants are 
borrowed heat. Exercise is earned heat 



Some pertinent remarks on ventilation and 
clothing by that sagacious and wholesome 
writer, Dr. Felix L. Oswald, may be quoted 
here : "As houses have been called exterior 
garments, a heavy suit of clothes might be 
called a portable house — a protective barrier 
between the skin and the cold air ; but in warm 
weather the most effectual device for diminish- 
ing the benefit of out-door exercise. Between 
May and October man has to wear clothes 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 149 

enough to keep the flies and gnats from troub- 
ling him : a pair of linen trousers, a shirt and a 
light neckerchief — whatsoever is more than 
these is of evil. The best head-dress for summer 
is our natural hair ; the next best is a light 
straw hat, with a perforated crown. Hats and 
caps, as protection from the vicissitudes of the 
atmosphere, are a comparatively recent inven- 
tion. The Syrians, Greeks, Romans, Normans 
and Visigoths wore helmets in war, but went 
uncovered in time of peace in the coldest and 
most stormy seasons ; the Gauls and Egyptians 
always went bare-headed, even in battle, and 
a hundred years after the conquest of Egypt by 
Cambyses (b. C. 525), the sands of Pelusium 
still covered the well-preserved skulls of the 
native warriors, while those of the turbaned 
Persians had crumbled to the jaw-bones. The 
Emperor Hadrian traveled bareheaded from the 
icy Alps to the borders of Mesopotamia ; the 
founders of several monastic orders interdicted 
all coverings for the head ; during the reign of 
Henry VIII. boys and young men generally 
went with the head bare, and to the preserva- 
tion of this old Saxon custom Sir John Sinclair 



150 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

ascribes the remarkable health of the orphans 
of the Queen's Hospital. The human skull is 
naturally better protected than that of any 
other warm-blooded animal, so that there 
seems little need of adding an artificial cover- 
ing ; and, as Dr. Adair observes, the most 
neglected children, street Arabs and young 
gypsies, are least liable to disease, chiefly be- 
cause they are not guarded from the access of 
fresh air by too many garments. It is also 
well known that baldness is the effect of effem- 
inate habits as often as of dissipation ; and yet 
there are plenty who think it highly dangerous 
to let a boy go out bareheaded even in May or 
September. The trouble is, that so many of 
our latter-day health codes are framed by men 
who mistake the exigencies of their own de- 
crepitude for the normal condition of mankind. 
Thousands of North American mothers get 
their hygiene oracles from the household notes 
of some orthodox weekly, where the Rev. Fal- 
staff Tartuffe assures them — from personal ex- 
perience — that raw apples are indigestible, and 
that rheumatism can be prevented only by 
night-caps and woolen undershirts.'* 



SOME HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS: 15I 

The same wholesome writer expresses a 
sentiment with which I fully agree and cannot 
forbear to quote : " What a stimulous it would 
give to manly sports and manly virtues, nay, 
to the physical regeneration of the human 
race/' says Dr. Oswald, speaking of the Turn- 
bund and organized sports, "if we could make 
their yearly assembly a national festival ! The 
river-meadows of Chattanooga, on the moun- 
tain amphitheatre near Huntsville, Alabama, 
would make a first-class Olympia, and our 
Indian summer would be a ready made 
* weather-truce/ without an expensive burnt 
offering to the sun. Olives, it is true, do not 
flourish on our soil ; our mercenary souls need 
other inducements ; but the rent of reserved 
seats and camp tents would enable us to gild 
the crowns of the several victors. Imagine the 
athletes of every village training for the prizes 
— thousands of boy-topers turning gymnasts, 
ward delegates running for something besides 
office, and the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation seeking paradise on this side of the 
grave !" 



152 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

Physical health must, indeed, become some- 
thing more than a mere fad before our race 
can do itself justice in the eternal struggle for 
higher ideals. It is only pedantic cowardice 
that says we are physically going backward ; 
but it is true wisdom to acknowledge the 
danger of allowing modern ignorance of the 
human body to long continue its dangerous 
effects. 



APPENDIX. 



A WORD ABOUT THE SPINE. 1 55 

XI. 

A WORD ABOUT THE SPINE. 



OEFORE saying anything of the spine as a 
feature of the human system to be trained 
or modified, let us see what the spine is from 
the anatomist's point of view. 

If we go to a work like the * 'Anatomy" of 
Gray we shall find a satisfactory account of 
the spine from the historical and surgical sides; 
that is to say, an account of the spine as it has 
been and is in the average specimens of the 
human family taken for dissection, or ex- 
amined with a view to gaining accurate 
knowledge of actual conditions. It is not 
the business of the anatomist to be a prophet. 
He is not concerned with the spine as it might 
be or should be. He is called to consider it 
as it is. I will not apologize here for giving 
briefly some information about so important a 
feature of the body as the spine. In fact, such 



i$6 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

a course is absolutely essential if the sugges- 
tions to be offered concerning the training of 
the spine are to be understood. 

The spine is described as a flexuous and 
flexible column, formed of a series of bones 
called vertebrae {yertere, to turn ) Its average 
length is about two feet two or three inches. 
There are thirty-three of the vertebrae. They 
are divided by name into cervical, dorsal, 
lumbar, sacral and coccygeal vertebrae. As 
will be seen by the accompanying illustration, 
seven of these bones are found in the cervical 
or neck region ; twelve in the dorsal or upper 
back region ; five in the lumbar or lower back 
region ; five in the sacral or pelvic region, and 
four comprising the rudimentary tail of which 
evolution has not yet deprived mankind. 

Speaking generally of the vertebrae Gray 
says : "The bodies of the vertebrse are piled 
one upon the other, forming a strong pillar for 
the support of the cranium and trunk, the 
arches forming a hollow cylinder behind for 
the protection of the spinal cord. The dif- 
ferent vertebrae are connected together by 
means of the articular processes and the inter- 



A WORD ABOUT THE SPINE. 



157 






ft t Dorsal 



Z\ 



in Lumbar* 



figure A. 



i 5 8 



THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 



vertebral cartilage, while the transverse and 
spinous processes serve as levers for the at- 
tachment of muscles which move the different 
parts of the spine. Lastly, between each pair 

Body 




Figure B. 

of vertebrae apertures exist through which the 
spinal nerves pass from the cord." 

A fragment of vertebrae is really a compli- 
cated affair, as we may see in figure B y which 
presents a section (the seventh) of the cervical 
vertebrae. In figure C we have a group of the 



A WORD ABOUT THE SPINE. 



159 




Figure C. 



ifiO THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

dorsal vertebrae. The illustration will suggest 
the peculiar manner in which the bones are 
fitted together. The parts in C bearing the 
numbers represent that part of the vertebrae 
which is called the body, and corresponds to 
the parts marked body in £. A cushion of 
cartilage is placed between each of these body 
bones. The opening in figure B, marked 
" Spinal Foramen/ 1 shows the avenue through 
which the carefully protected spinal cord 
passes. The protruding point of bone oppo- 
site the body is the point felt through the skin 
of the back and the point to which the mus- 
cle makes its attachment. 

The curve in the spine, shown in Fig. A , is 
the one usually represented by anatomists, and 
is, perhaps, the curve actually existing in the 
average body. One of the general peculiari- 
ties of the spine is a slight lateral curvature 
toward the right, usually explained by the 
preferred use of the right hand and arm. The 
explanation is supported by the statement that 
in left-handed persons the lateral curvature is 
likely to be directed to the other side. 

The curve shown in Fig. A is so general, I 



A WORD ABOUT THE SPINE- l6l 

might say universal, that it has come to 
be looked upon as inevitable. Finding this 
curvature so general anatomists have been 
ready to assume that the curve was favored by 
some desirability. The most familiar argu- 
ment is that the curving of the spine helps to 
absorb vibration and saves th6 brain from 
shock. It is also urged that the curve lends 
greater force and strength to the spine than 
if it were straight 

Very young.children do not have a curved 
spine. Their backs are perfectly flat. As 
they grow 1 older and begin walking the spine 
begins to take on a more or less pronounced 
curve. If the body is carelessly carried the 
curve increases. In old age the curve is some-* 
-times seen in its most pronounced form. Varl~ 
ous causes contribute to the curvature. The 
muscles tend to draw the spine out of the 
straight line, which it readily assumes in young 
children. Then when the child stands- thte 
weight of its head and the upper part of the 
body aids the curvature, if there is nounneces- 
sary yielding to the force of gravity. Relaxed 
muscles in a lazy, careless or decrepit person 



162 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

leave the weight of these upper parts of the 
body to curve the spine in an exaggerated 
degree. 

Let us look at the claim that the curved 
spine is desirable and inevitable. The sugges- 
tion that the curve aids the intervertebral sub- 
stance in absorbing the shock is not borne out 
by an examination of the structure of the spine, 
or by a study of natural conditions in the in- 
dividual. A shock from above, sufficiently 
severe to call into play the elasticity of the 
spine, would probably break the skull. A 
shock from below is so largely absorbed by the 
muscles of the legs and pelvic region that very 
little of it reaches the spine itself. If this were 
not so walking and running would be intoler- 
able. If the spine were actually subjected to the 
necessity of bearing the frequent shocks from 
below a person would soon become paralyzed. 
In any case the relation of the curvature to the 
whole shock-bearing capacity of the spine is 
too slight to justify the preservation of the 
curvature on the utilitarian ground. 

Prof. Gray himself admits that the cushion- 
substance between the vertebrae is thicker at 



A WORD ABOUT THE SPINE. 163 

the front than at the back in the cervical and 
lumbar regions. In other words, it is thinner 
on the inside of these sharp curves of the neck 
and lower back, where the pressure is greatest, 
and thickest on the outside of the curves 
where it is slightest, as the illustration shows. 
In the middle of the spine, where the bones 
run in the straightest line, the cushions are 
of evener form, a fact which offers a curiously 
interesting argument for the general volun- 
tary straightening of the spine. 

The argument that a 

a curve gives strength 
to the vertebral column 
is scarcely borne out 
by mechanical princi- 
ples. A lateral arch 
is stronger than a 
straight horizontal line 
with the pressure from 
above. Thus, in Fig. 
D, an arch with a 
pressure at A is 
stronger than a hori- Figure d. 

zontal support with a pressure at B. But 



164 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

an upright curve, with the pressure at C, is 
not by any means so strong as the straight 
line with the pressure at D. This is a rudi- 
mentary principle of mechanics that cannot be 
escaped. 

If neither the concussion theory nor the 
theory of force in support justifies the curved 
spine, and the curvature is explained only by 
the action of weight, of muscular action, and 
of careless carriage, then there is no reason 
why the curve should not be voluntarily modi- 
fied, if the modification can be shown to be 
advantageous. 

Some of the reasons why the spine should 
be straight, or should, at least, have as little 
curve as possible, have already been suggested 
in this treatise. It will appear that when it is 
straightened the general grace and force of 
the body is increased. The backward curve, 
as in Fig. I (p. 22), is enfeebling and forceless. 
The forward curve, as in Fig. 2 (p. 25), is 
dangerous as well as inelegant. This posi- 
tion naturally tips the pelvis forward. In a 
careless or feeble position the pelvis is some- 
times too far forward — sometimes too far back. 



A WORD ABOUT THE SPINE. l6$ 

Either position is inimical to the health of 
the organs and to the strength and endurance 
of the system as a whole. People who throw 
the pelvis too far forward in standing often tip 
it nervelessly back when sitting, with the re- 
sult discussed on page 28. 

The weight of the abdomen, which, in young 
children, begins to draw the pelvis forward, 
often produces the same effect in people who 
acquire abdominal fat. This action on the 
pelvis, increasing the forward curve of the 
lumbar region in the spine, is one of the most 
dangerous effects of corpulency. I would be 
at little difficulty in showing the shocking 
effects of this change in the various organs. 

Thus a proper carriage of the pelvis is the 
first and paramount precaution against abdom- 
inal fat. The muscular action necessary to 
the preservation of a right angle in the pelvis 
discourages fatty formation in this region. As 
I have already said, no one who carries the 
pelvis in the manner described and illustrated, 
and who sufficiently controls the abdominal 
muscles, can acquire abdominal fat. 

The proper angle in the pelvis is at onc<» 



166 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

a result of a straight spine and an assistance to 
a straight spine. Control of the abdominal 
muscles carries on the work the pelvis begins, 
and the neck muscles aid the spine itself in 
straightening the shoulder and neck region; 
while drawing back the head, with the face 
vertical and parallel with upright lines of the 
body, increases the force of the body's position 
and benefits the expansion of the lungs. 



MORE ABOUr BREATHING. 167 

XII. 
MORE ABOUT BREATHING. 

SINCE the original publication of this book 
I have received from various persons who 
are interested as teachers in the science of 
physical culture, various suggestions and criti- 
cisms upon the method of breathing advocated 
in the foregoing pages. One lady who taught 
others how to breathe according to the method 
in which I had instructed her, was advised not 
to do so by another person who claimed to be 
high in authority as regards what form of phys- 
ical education should or should not be taught 
in certain quarters, urging that the system I 
advocated was not orthodox, and giving as a 
further reason why my idea should not be ad- 
vocated, that I was not a professional — what- 
ever that may mean. 

The whole difficulty in the question oi 
proper methods of breathing seems to me to 
rest on the failure to understand the essential 



168 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

difference between costal and abdominal breath- 
ing. A great deal that is conflicting and mis- 
leading has been written on this subject, both 
by those who are supposed to thoroughly un- 
derstand the makeup of the human animal as 
well as by those who do not claim this ex- 
haustive knowledge. It is not in my province, 
neither have I any desire, to criticise individu- 
als. I have neither the time nor the inclination 
for personal debates, but so long as my own 
vitality survives I shall not hesitate to attack 
systems of training, be they general or specific, 
that have not a basis in actual facts and natural 
reason. 

The subject of costal breathing, to which I 
have referred in the chapter on "How to 
Breathe," seems to offer one of the most press- 
ing questions of the hour; and its discussion 
would be particularly valuable, perhaps, ^ to 
those who fancy themselves securely orthodox. 

But before saying more of this, I must speak 
of an allusion often made by people who seem 
to pay more attention to developing their mem- 
ories than to developing their power of reason ; 
I mean their allusion to the being called a 



MORE ABOUT BREATHING. 169 

normal man and woman, by which is generally 
meant the primitive man and woman. 

1 Now, this being who is held up for our 
guidance in physical matters as a sort of beacon 
which, if followed, will surely lead us poor civ- 
ilized mortals into a state of serene health ; who 
would make the materia medica obsolete and 
send into oblivion those who practice it; this 
being offers, I am afraid, no very promising 
guide to reasonable beings. Speaking of this 
primitive being whom we are told to look upon 
as a perfect physical type, Fritz Schultz in 
his work on "Fetichism" aptly remarks that 
he has no intelligence. Such beings exert 
themselves only so far as strict necessity 
requires. After the hunt comes unbroken re- 
pose. Feast and gluttony are regarded by all 
primitive savages as the acme of earthly feli- 
city. Infanticide, foeticide, abortion, abandon- 
ment, sale and even eating of children are so 
common among them as to explode all the 
sentimental idyllic tirades that have ever been 
sung about the innocent life of the human 
animal in the state of nature. All of which 
goes to prove that education, especially that 



IJTO THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM 

part of education in which the reasoning 

faculties are devoloped by observation, compa- 
rison and deduction is much the best factor in 
developing men and women to the highest 
possible point of physical as well as mental 
perfection. 

I do not beleive, then, in imitating the 
savage. From what I have observed of these 
so-called normal beings they are nothing 
more than what may be best described as raw 
material ; and in that state they certainly are 
not models fit for us to follow, unless we wish 
to retrograde. In the undeveloped state of 
their intellectual powers, they know nothing of 
forces of nature, and unless they do they cannot 
hope to develope themselves physically. In 
their condition they know no more of breath- 
ing so as to foster a healthy and long life, 
than they do of ethical philosophy. They 
breathe abdominally because they are lazy and 
ignorant, and do not know how and never have 
known how to breathe any other way. 

This very condition is the trouble with a 
majority of the people whom we call civilized. 
As I have already suggested, nature no more 



MORE ABOUT BREATHING. 171 

teaches the human animal how to breathe, 
walk, stand, stoop and sit in a manner more 
beneficial than may be suggested by the 
promptings of our sensations, than she teaches 
to read and write. One is as much a matter of 
education as the other. Many writers are fond 
of pointing to the case of the Indian woman 
who gives birth to children without the aid of a 
physician or the care of a nurse, and of claim- 
ing this as proof of the Indian woman's physi- 
cal superiority in a primitive condition. But in 
truth the fact offers no real proof of any such 
superiority, for the same conditions are frequent- 
ly to be found in centers of civilized life among 
people whose circumstances force or induce 
them to do without the comforts of civilized 
people in general. Those who care to investi- 
gate, and who are willing to accept a truth 
even when it destroys a pet theory, will find 
that civilization causes no physical deteriora- 
tion, either physical or mental, so long as peo- 
ple do not willfully reject knowledge. 

Breathing costally, or without the action of 
the abdomen, is an educated method of breath- 
ing, and can be acquired only by an earnest 



I 7 2 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

and conscientious effort and a definite co- 
operation of the mind and body. , 

In acquiring this method of breathing, the 
first thing to be done is to learn how to hold 
the body erect, after the manner already ex- 
plained in Chapter II. Standing seems to be 
the simplest possible thing to do, but the 
slightest observation will teach the reader that 
all people do not stand the same way; that 
some round the shoulders, that some pull them 
awkwardly far back, that some protrude the 
abdomen, and so on. All of these postures 
are incorrect. There is only one right way, 
that is, the way that enhances the strength, the 
endurance, the general heath of the body. In 
Chapter II. I have sought to make plain what 
the correct standing position seems to me to be. 

Now, practice dilating the nostrils as a 
horse does. Inhale slowly as much air as you 
can — through the nostrils, of course — and re- 
lease the air again through the nostrils. At 
the same time slowly contract the muscles of 
the abdomen, contracting and releasing these 
muscles until the control is so perfect that the 
motion may be continued while the slow breath- 



MORE ABOUT BREATHING. 173 

ing is going on. Meanwhile, the arms, unless 
they are occupied, should hang at the sides. 
Their muscles need not be used — they will not 
drop off. 

To breath costally by a conscious effort of 
the nostrils and the muscles of the upper chest 
may require and does require a conscious re- 
straint of a tendency to use the abdominal 
muscles. For the successful acquirement of 
this beneficial method of breathing the abdom- 
inal movement must be specifically resisted. 
The result is not only the strengthening of the 
lungs and chest, but the strengthening of the 
waist region. 

I have elsewhere (in the chapter on training 
for women) alluded to the relationship between 
corsets and breathing. In that chapter I have 
said that the fact that corsets force women in a 
measure to breathe costally and prevent the 
abdominal action was in a measure a beneficial 
action.* The suggestion seems to have been 
taken up by certain ladies eager to defend the 
use of the corset. At one meeting, indeed, a 
lady is reported as saying, "Checkley advocates 
corsets." 



174 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

It should not be necessary to say that I 
never advocated or defended corsets. The fact 
that corsets may in one direction be said to 
have had a beneficial action by no means justi- 
fies their use. As measured against the injury 
they do, the benefit is very meagre indeed. 

The chief injury wrought by the corset re- 
sults from its use as a support to the body. 
Anything that helps hold up the body, that 
prevents the body from holding itself up, is — 
unless in the case of cripples or hopelessly en- 
feebled persons — an injury to the body. The 
corset increases any tendency to weakness in 
the back. It increases and does not diminish a 
tendency to fleshiness. Women who, in get- 
ting into a corset, push as much flesh as possible 
above and below the waist line in order to de- 
crease their circumference at the waist, are not 
only deforming themselves and increasing the 
fatty enlargement by incasing and holding it 
free of muscular action, but are working other 
positive injuries to their system. 



FORCE OF HABIT. 1 75 



XIII 

FORCE OF HABIT 

T N the business world, the man who is habit- 
* ually industrious usually wins the prize from 
the man who works by fits and starts. 

Character is more valuable than ready cash 
as a business asset. 

Few people realize that they can create a 
physical character for themselves. 

They go through life with the idea that their 
bodies are fixed, inelastic entities and because 
they have had certain physical characteristics for 
thirty years, they must go on having the same 
physical assets or liabilities for the balance of 
their lives. 

A man explains his unsightly round shoulders 
by saying that he has to bend over a desk for 
hours at a time. It has never occurred to him 
that by adopting a different sitting position, or 



I76 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

by altering the height or inclination of his desk 
top, he might have escaped his deformity — and if 
you tell him that he can straighten his shoulders 
by deliberately cultivating a different carriage of 
the head and body, he is apt to disbelieve you. 

Conan Doyle through the mouth of Sherlock 
Holmes points out that manual trades leave their 
trade marks on the physique. 

Everyone admits the physical effects of bad 
habits but overlooks the equally visible effects of 
good habits. It is habitual and not spasmodic 
exercise that counts. 

A blacksmith's arms are proverbial, but the 
thickened, stiffened back of the coal heaver, the 
abnormal neck of the wrestler, the compact ankle 
of the toe-dancer, and the shin muscles of the 
"heel and toe" walker, are just as good instances 
of the permanent results of habitual work. 

All of which is mentioned with the hope of 
making you realize the permanent beneficial re- 
sults, both muscular and organic, that you can 
acquire by teaching yourself correct habits of 
standing and walking. Twenty years ago I 
taught a pupil how to walk and breathe. He was 
one of those "too busy to exercise" chaps and 



FORCE OF HABIT. 1 77 

though only 35 years old, had gone to seed to 
such an extent that while his chest was only 36 in. 
around, his waist measured 40 in. It sounds 
incredible, but after 4 months of correct stand- 
ing, walking and breathing, he increased his 
chest to 40 in. and decreased his waist to 34 in. 
He did not take one special exercise and did not 
diet. In the course of his daily activities he 
walked about 3 miles a day — never more than a 
half mile at a time. Today at 55 years he is an 
even better built man than at 35 and his capacity 
for work is appalling to his associates. 



I insist that by paying attention to your mus- 
cular habits, you can create a good physical 
character — that you can intentionally and delib- 
erately make yourself a higher physical type. In 
other words that you can demonstrate evolution 
in one generation. 

It is a human trait not to appreciate our 
possessions while we have them. An active youth 
in the game-playing age does not value his own 
flexibility because he has never been without it. 
Let him take up a confining business, and after 
15 years of it try to play his old games. Then 



I78 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

he will find that because he has not used all his 
joints and muscles, some of them refuse to act 
as easily as they did when he was younger. 

Five minutes exercise a day will keep a man 
flexible. I believe that when the muscles are 
kept in trim through habit, their owner should 
be able to jump in any game, after a long lay-off, 
and make a good showing — and there should be 
no after-stiffness. Practically every out-door 
game requires 3 things: good lungs, for endur- 
ance; good legs for activity, and absolute flex- 
ibility and smoothness of muscular action. 



On Fixed Programs: 

If you take special exercises avoid too rapid 
increases of the amount or vigor of movements. 
Don't do a special exercise 5 times one week, 
10 times the next and so on ad infinitum. You will 
soon need an adding machine on that plan. Be- 
sides you are soon thinking of the count and 
nothing of the way you are exercising. 

Again, you may have had a busy and exhaust- 
ing day. Five minutes of relaxing exercise would 
probably be highly beneficial, but your program 
calls for so many repetitions that 50 minutes 



FORCE OF HABIT. 1 79 

won't see the end of them. Fifty minutes exercise 
under such conditions would be like forcing your- 
self to eat a heavy meal when you were not 
hungry. 

Even worse is systematically increasing the 
severity of your exercise. 

Avoid exercises that make the muscles stiff 
in action, and hard to the touch. Imagine trying 
to play tennis with your muscles consciously 
tensed. Tennis, in my opinion, needs more 
agility and more flexibility than any other game. 

In golf, your professional will ding into your 
ears the necessity for "smoothness and rhythm" 
in your strokes. 

In all vigorous athletics the prizes are won, 
not by those who have the most muscles, but by 
those who can control and use their muscles. 

Strength is not to be despised, but remember 
that "quick strength" is what counts in games 
and in physical combat. Speed, backed with 
endurance, is the deciding factor. It is of little 
use to be able to stun a man with a blow of the 
fist, if you are so slow that you cannot maneuver 
yourself into a position to deliver the blow. 



l80 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

As you value your continued health and vigor, 
never enter on a program where you literally 
force the accumulation of external muscles by 
steadily increasing the resistance the muscles have 
to overcome. 



Special exercises are necessary in cases of 
obesity or where particularly bad physical habits 
have literally distorted some parts of the bodily 
framework. 

A wry neck is a distortion, so is a flat chest, 
or a flat foot, or a shoulder that is carried higher, 
or lower, than its mate. 

I suppose I know as many special upbuilding 
and corrective exercises as do most trainers, but 
I am happy to say that such exercises are not 
necessary for the average person. 

Breathe, walk, stand and sit correctly — master 
these accomplishments and long life and con- 
tinued health will be your reward. 



ON MODERN STYLES 



Since I wrote in the nineties, protesting 
against the wearing of the kind of corsets then 



FORCE OF HABIT. l8l 

in vogue, I have seen the change to the more 
sightly, but scarcely less harmful "straight front 
corset/' to the almost rational girdle, and of late 
to no corsets at all. 

As a factor in improving the national health, 
I would consider the abolition of the corset an 
event of epochal importance, were it not for the 
fact that those who abandon the corset are the 
very ones who indulge in the grotesque and 
ungainly "flapper" pose. Surely those young 
women who affect this round-shouldered, stom- 
ach protruding, hip undulating pose have 
achieved the acme of physical sloppiness. 

The present limitation of clothing I heartily 
approve. Men who, a generation ago, would 
have at the advent of cold weather been forced 
into thick and stuffy under and outer clothing, 
now wear winter clothes much the same weight 
as their summer clothes and put on extra wraps 
only when the emergency demands it. 

Women are freeing themselves from the 
shackles of dress. The almost Olympian demand 
for outdoor athletics is partly responsible. In 
1920 there must have been 50 first class women 
swimmers, tennis players, golf players and riders 



182 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

to every one in 1900. Women now take part in 
almost all games and their average performance 
is not very much below that of men. 

I have seen four young women tearing around 
a tennis court and making "gets" and strokes 
that would have astonished the best players of 
a generation ago. 

If all women dress lightly, none will be con- 
spicuous. A girl in a knee length skirt is not 
as much noticed as her mother was in a so-called 
"hygienic" ankle-length skirt. 

Ages ago women adopted the corset in an 
effort to have a certain conventionally beautiful 
figure, and in the time since, the wearing of 
corsets has become a convention, and one from 
which only women can rid women. 

Even when slenderness is the mode, no 
woman wants to be painfully thin. 

Regardless of all modes, every woman dreads 
passing beyond the point of plumpness. In indi- 
vidual cases where heredity is a factor, or organic 
or glandular disturbances are present, extreme 
thinness, or fleshiness MAY be incurable. In 99 
cases out of a hundred, however, rational dress, 
moderation in eating and exercise, together with 



FORCE OF HABIT. 1 83 

correct walking or standing, will give any woman 
an attractive, well rounded figure. 

If one can ever make women understand that 
corsets keep a stout woman stout, and force a 
scrawny woman to remain scrawny, then dress 
reform will come with a rush. 



Friends say to me "Checkley, what do you 
think of the automobile? You used to say that 
people did not walk enough, but what about it 
now?" 

I cannot see that the present generation is 
a bit less physically vigorous than the preceding 
one. Young people, especially the leisured ones, 
do ride a lot in motor cars, but frequently they 
use the car to reach a place where they can exert 
themselves physically. 

The immense growth of our suburbs is due 
to the auto and the trolleys. Golf and country 
clubs have increased ten-fold in two decades. If 
a group of young people drive to a Club and 
play a round of golf, or two or three sets of the 
very fast tennis that now prevails, certainly they 
are getting better exercise, and more varied exer- 



184 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

cise, than if they strolled two or three miles after 
the fashion of their parents' youth. 

And if the young women of the party dress 
so as to give themselves the greatest possible 
freedom of bodily movement, so much the better 
for their health. 



When I commenced teaching there was but 
one game universally played — Baseball. Foot- 
Ball and Track Meets were a monopoly of a 
few eastern colleges and athletic clubs, and 
tennis was considered a somewhat effeminate 
diversion. I had this in mind when on page 151 
I quoted Doctor Oswald's hopes. 

Since then I have seen the spread of tennis, 
the introduction of golf and basket ball, and the 
raising of games like hockey into major sports. 

Our country is big, but the American is 
adaptive, and whether he lives in cold New Eng- 
land or sunny California, he manages to play 
athletic games most of the year; consequently, 
we have today an army of millions who practice 
some form of sport with more or less regularity, 
and we have displaced the British in the athletic 
leadership of the world. 



FORCE OF HABIT. 185 

Your grandmother donned a cap and took up 
knitting at 45 and your grandfather's ambition 
at 50 was to wear a frock coat, and to be con- 
sidered a pillar of conservatism. At the same 
ages your mother learns a new dance step, and 
your father commences to take golf seriously. 
Which proves that there is nothing like continued 
physical activity to keep one young. 



This Greek Dancing, or nature dancing, is 
almost as good for the growing girl as tumbling 
is for the young boy. 

Nothing can come nearer natural exercise 
than rhythmic dancing, where perfection of per- 
formance is dependent on freedom of movement, 
suppleness, balance and flexibility. 



A man who stands, walks and breathes prop- 
erly is almost always preeminent in games. The 
four greatest natural athletes I ever saw, all, 
consciously or unconsciously, stood, walked and 
breathed correctly. Each one was always ab- 
solutely erect and balanced. Each one had a 
straight back, powerful legs, deep chest, capacious 



1 86 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

lungs and endless endurance. Not one of them 
ever went in for gymnastics and yet every one 
was supreme at games. 

Speaking collectively, their outstanding phy- 
sical characteristics were their ability to 

1. Run much faster and further than most 
men; 

2. Jump higher; 

3. Throw a baseball and kick a football for 
a tremendous distance; 

4. Stand so firmly on their feet that it was 
almost impossible to throw them to the 
ground in wrestling; 

5. Push forward against the combined re- 
sistance of 3 or 4 ordinary men. 

All these men are today over 50 years of age. 
All of them retain their figures and most of their 
youthful strength. Any one of them is physically 
a better specimen than 99 out of a hundred men 
at 25 years. 

THE TEETH 

It will pay you to clean your teeth religiously. 
Absolutely perfect health is impossible with de- 
fective teeth. 

Employ the best dentist you can afford and 



FORCE OF HABIT. 1 87 

follow his advice as though your health depended 
on it, as indeed it does in a great measure. 

An individual who keeps himself young by 
moderate exercise, will have sound teeth much 
longer than those who allow their organs and 
muscles to atrophy through lack of use. 

All the bodily functions are interdependent. 
Modern dentistry through preserving the teeth, 
prolongs life. 

Habitual moderate exercise, through natural 
means, keeps your body young and postpones 
the time of life when you must have recourse to 
the dentist's aid. 

The Condition of the Hair — its thickness and 
lustre are, as a general rule, an indication of the 
vigor of the individual. 

Some authorities claim that baldness runs in 
families and that a certain shaped head is liable 
to become prematurely bald. 

I have little faith in local treatment as a rem- 
edy for baldness. I do not know that hair can 
be made to grow on a bald head, although 1 
believe that if you can rejuvenate the body 
through exercise and proper carriage and breath- 



188 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

ing, you will do much to promote a healthy 
growth on the scalp. 

If you will take notes regarding the next 100 
bald-headed men you see, I think you will find 
that the majority come in two classes: 

Either they are stout beyond the range of 
plumpness, or else they are rather slender, and 
have thin necks and carry their heads thrust 
forward. 



Many have written me asking "How is it 
possible for me to determine when I am holding 
my body correctly. Your charts are plain but 
how am I to be sure?" 

Here is the answer — Stand with feet a few 
inches apart, arms hanging at sides — now make 
yourself as tall as you can, without straining. 
Reach up with your head (but don't stretch 
your neck like a rooster). Do this and you will 
feel your chest lift, while your shoulders, hips 
and feet will fall into proper alignment. If you 
hold your shoulders too far back it will prevent 
you from reaching your full height. So it will 
if you hold your hips too far back, or attempt 
to protrude your chest unduly. 



FORCE OF HABIT. 1 89 

Stand that way a little while — you will find 
that unconsciously your weight has been shifted 
to the balls of your feet, the heels are resting 
lightly on the ground, your upper chest wall is 
moving with unwonted flexibility and there is a 
slight tensing of the muscles along the lower part 
of the spine. (It won't need many attempts — 
you will soon gauge your position by the way you 
feel — the position exhilarates you.) 

Now, relax into your former position and you 
will immediately realize that like most people 
you have been habitually supporting yourself on 
your bones, rather than with your muscles. 

In walking simply hold your head high. Don't 
lean back ; don't push out your chest ; don't hold 
neck, shoulders or arms rigid. Everything easy. 
Holding the crown of your head high will lift 
your chest. It is not necessary to tilt the head 
backward. 



When practicing "costal breathing" always 
make yourself tall, but do not fall into the error 
of thinking that extra exertion will bring extra 
results. 

Some are apt to figure that if they can do 



190 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

well by making themselves tall, they will do even 
better by straining themselves and stretching up 
to the limit. That would only put one under 
such a strain that less, rather than more results 
would be obtained. On the other hand, it is 
impossible to acquire the "costal breathing" if 
the body is held in a slouching position. 



Do you suppose that soldiers are made to 
stand erect simply to make a pretty picture on 
parade? Or do you realize that leaders of in- 
fantry long ago discovered that men who are 
drilled into holding themselves erect, will march 
further, carry more equipment and better endure 
the fatigue of a campaign than if not so trained. 

Take trainers of prize fighters. Their job is 
to bring their charges to the summit of condition 
at a certain date. Besides sparring and ringcraf t, 
the fighter must enter the ring at the very top 
pitch of speed, endurance and vitality. You never 
hear of a prize fighter in training handling big 
weights, or doing heavy gymnastics to put big 
hard muscles on the arms and upper body. The 
conditioning is mostly rope-skipping and road- 
work; leg and lung exercises to promote endur- 



FORCE OF HABIT. I9I 

ance and vitality. Of course such training entails 
work for the waist muscles. Every time you 
raise your knee the abdominal muscles contract 
and every time your foot spurns the earth again, 
your lower back muscles are busy. 

Prize fighters are selected physical specimens. 
I do not recommend running as a curative exer- 
cise except for the comparatively young. The 
majority of men past the meridian of life can 
get all the leg work they need from vigorous 
walking. 

It seems to me that many authorities, while 
realizing the destructive influence of bad bodily 
habits, fail to emphasize the constructive value 
of good habits. We are told that a round-shoul- 
dered position cramps the chest and interferes 
with the free play of the lungs, and are then 
told to "hold the shoulders back," apparently 
merely to avoid an evil condition. Why not go 
further, and show how a correct carriage, com- 
bined with a specified method of breathing, will 
not only keep you from cramping the lung-space 
but will actually make the rib-box larger? 

If we are told to hold ourselves erect, the 



192 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

emphasis is laid more on the effect on the beholder 
than on the beneficial health-giving effects to 
ourselves. 

We are all more or less creatures of habit, 
and these habits mold not only our minds and 
our characters, but our bodies as well. The 
effect of the four years' constant drill at West 
Point is still visible in the erect carriage of many 
a retired Army officer. The effects of life-long 
peering in books is evident in the round shoul- 
ders and wry neck of many an elderly scholar. 
Habitual employment at a sewing machine warps 
the frame of most operators. Habitual moun- 
tain climbing gives highlanders strong legs. 
Habitual work on the flying rings and trapeze 
gives the circus performer an odd, top-heavy 
development. Habitual use of the right arm 
makes the right shoulder stronger than its mate. 
Such instances are familiar to all. What escapes 
our notice is the effect of slight differences in the 
gait and bodily carriage. A man who takes a 
long step, and always has the knee slightly bent, 
not only visibly shambles but also has slender, 
shapeless legs. The man who walks with a short 
stride and a quick firm step, usually has pro- 



FORCE OF HABIT. 1 93 

nounced development of certain muscles in the 
leg. Moreover, we can state, almost as an axiom, 
that a man with a firm walk has a firm character, 
and that physical slouching is frequently accom- 
panied with mental and moral indecision. 

Individual characteristics of bearing are often 
transmitted from one generation to another. I 
have seen sons who resembled their fathers in 
face, figure and manner of walking. But if a 
man has inherited a certain bodily conformation 
and tricks of gait and gesture, it does not mean 
that he cannot improve his body until he is of a 
finer physical type than his father. A tailor's 
oldest son may become a journeyman in his 
father's shop, and his body will be molded by his 
daily work; while a younger son will become a 
farm-hand and acquire a much more rugged 
type of body. 

It is very much easier to drift into a bad habit 
than to cultivate a good one. But in body-build- 
ing (or body molding) the rewards of correct 
habits of posture and breathing are so great that, 
if such effects are intelligently explained, most 
people will immediately strive to cultivate the 
required habits. 



194 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

Among those who take up a definite program 
of gymnastics more than fifty per cent quit im- 
mediately, on account of the muscular stiffness 
consequent on the first day's exercise. 

When forming muscular habits there is no 
such deterrent. The adoption of the correct 
standing and walking positions will not produce 
any soreness of muscles nor stiffness of joints. 
The only noticeable result is a sense of exhilara- 
tion and of increased vigor. And that makes you 
eager to continue the experiment. 

Even the first definite practice in the effect to 
acquire costal breathing is not accompanied by 
any soreness in the respiratory muscles. It takes 
several days before any real flexibility is apparent 
in the upper ribs and consequently there is no dis- 
turbing strain on the muscles involved. 

The habit of carrying the head high has a 
most noticeable effect on the size and contour of 
the neck. If you increase your chest girth three 
inches (which is quite possible) by adopting the 
suggestions in chapters II and III, you will find 
that your neck has increased three-quarters of 
an inch to an inch, and has become distinctly 
more smooth and rounded. The appearance of 



FORCE OF HABIT. 1 95 

the neck is a visible gauge of your physical con- 
dition and measure of vigor. 

The habit of a measured elastic stride, of 
stepping out firmly and vigorously, will add more 
than an inch to the girth of the calf and more 
than that to the size of the thigh. 

A very large number of men have the failing 
of striding from the knees instead of from the 
hips. As one abandons games that require run- 
ning, the hip muscles and those of the upper 
thigh are apt to be used less and less. Most 
business men will admit that their shoulders are 
so stiff that they cannot throw a ball for any dis- 
tance and yet do not realize that their hips are 
even more stiff through lack of proper use. 

Stout men blame their "corporations" for 
their inability to lift their knees, whereas the stiff- 
ness of the hip- joints has a lot to do with it. 

A woman, providing she wears a comfortably 
loose skirt, bends her leg less at the knee, 
and walks from the hip, much more than man 
does. 

I once caused a good deal of discussion by 
recommending that, in walking, a man should 
undulate the hips. That is, he should, when 



I96 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

advancing the right foot, reach forward with the 
right hip, and vice versa. 

My critics claimed that this would produce an 
unsightly swaying of the hips from side to side. 
They did not understand that the hip-movement 
is forward and backward in line with the stride, 
and that, when in ordinary street attire, this mo- 
tion is not noticeable. This alternate reaching 
forward with the hips adds an inch or so to the 
length of every stride without increasing the exer- 
tion of walking. 

More important still, the habit of thus walk- 
ing will keep the hip- joints flexible, develop the 
muscles of the hip region and add to the strength 
of the loins. 

A person with a slow, languid walk will gen- 
erally sway from side to side, rocking as they 
walk. Such a gait indicates a weakness in the 
muscles of the sides, which will quickly be elim- 
inated if a vigorous stride is adopted as a habit. 



ON RETAINING YOUTH. 1 97 

XIV 

ON RETAINING YOUTH 

y^i AN a man by definite intention keep himself 
^^ young? 

Is the duration of an individual's life entirely 
dependent on hereditary vigor, or, can we by 
governing our physical habits become more vig- 
orous than our forebears? 

Does the continuance of the proper functioning 
of our internal organs depend entirely on chance ? 
Or can we preserve such organs in their youthful 
vigor by a definite program of exercise? 

Old age is a physical decay. Eliminating 
death from epidemic diseases, most people die 
from the debilitating, or improper functioning 
of some one of the vital organs or glands. 

Men of fine build and in apparently vigorous 
health drop dead of heart disease. Such cases 
are hardly unusual enough to cause comment. 
Men who suffer from diseases of the liver, lungs, 



I98 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEMi. 

kidneys or from glandular troubles usually bear 
outward marks of those diseases. 

Certainly it is axiomatic that individuals ad- 
dicted to excess (whether such excesses are in 
the line of intoxicants, drugs, overeating, sexual 
indulgences, or muscular exertion) are apt to die 
when they should be in their prime. And con- 
versely, that those who exercise moderation in 
living are apt to last a long while. 

What are the indications of youthful vigor? 
An erect carriage of the body, a head held high, 
a vigorous stride, a flat back and flexibility of 
joints and muscles. 

The signs of age? A drooping head, bent 
back, feeble step and stiffness of joints and 
muscles. 

Most men of sedentary occupation unques- 
tionably rust out. And this process of rusting 
out is simply due to lack of exercise — lack of 
use of the muscles and joints. Sensible men 
recognize this and act accordingly. Now-a-days 
you frequently hear an elderly man say that he 
is "keeping himself young'' by playing golf, or 
by light work in the garden. 

Golf and gardening have unquestionably been 



ON RETAINING YOUTH. 1 99 

the physical salvation of many a man. I think 
the combination of the two beat the most elab- 
orately equipped gymnasium. The only trouble 
is that ninety per cent of us have neither gardens 
or golf clubs, and the remaining ten per cent play 
or dig, only a few months in each year. 

My point is, that all of us, men and women, 
can keep ourselves young by merely "watching 
our step." That is by walking, and standing, in 
such a way that we convert a disagreeable but 
necessary exertion into a pleasurable and bene- 
ficial exercise. 

Since first writing my book I have been able 
to check up, in hundreds of cases, the effect of 
my theories and teachings. 

I can truthfully say that I have taken men 
in their forties, thin-necked, flat-chested, stoop- 
shouldered, spindle-shanked chaps, and by instill- 
ing an enthusiasm for correct walking, changed 
them in a few months into deep-chested, flat- 
backed, round-necked men with well knit legs, 
and a stride that denoted their inward vigor. 

What did it cost them? Nothing but a little . 
will power and watchfulness for the first few 
weeks, — for during that period they had to pur- 



20O THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

posely make themselves walk and breathe cor- 
rectly. After a month or so it became a habit. 

If a vigorous, springy step, flat back and a 
head held high are signs of youth, we can 
prolong youthful vigor by forming the habit of 
so carrying ourselves. 

You may say "That is simply counterfeiting 
youth" — I deny it, and say emphatically that it 
is easier, far easier, to keep oneself young by 
correct method of walking and breathing, than it 
is by playing golf. 



I have already said that the organs could not 
properly function when the habitual position of 
the body was markedly improper. Anatomy and 
physiology are now compulsory subjects in our 
public schools, and no child is allowed to forget 
that a man who stoops and holds his chest flat, 
is not as apt to have as much lung power as a 
man who stands erect and holds his chest out. 
All of you know that. But how many of you 
realize that the proper functioning of the organs 
in the abdominal cavity is largely dependent on 
the proper position of the body, and the condition 
of the muscles of the waist region? 



ON RETAINING YOUTH. 201 

The owner of a torpid liver is generally a 
lazy individual. I know stout men who can 
harden their arm muscles because they are proud 
of their biceps, and keep mental control of that 
muscle. But they cannot harden the muscles that 
lie over the stomach (rectus abdominus). If 
they could, they wouldn't be paunchy. It only 
takes a little thought and practically no special 
exercise to keep your waist down, ♦/ you carry 
yourself correctly. 

I am not foolish enough to claim that organic 
diseases can always be cured either by exercise, 
posture or diet; but I do devoutly believe that 
one can ward off such diseases by taking mus- 
cular exercise that helps the organs to function. 

For generations, physicians have prescribed 
horse-back riding as a curative for certain liver 
troubles. Riding is a fine exercise, but if you 
"have a liver" and can't afford a horse, why not 
try a little rope-skipping? It will shake up your 
liver, and develop your legs and lungs at the 
same time. 

Leading physicians tell me that the higher 
they go in their profession, the more they search 
for and try to eliminate the underlying causes 



202 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

of organic disease; and that the correction of 
such causes involves the co-operation of the 
patient, generally in the line of submitting to 
some fixed regimen of exercise, diet, or abstention 
from indulgences. 

Doctors today prescribe mountain-climbing to 
build up weak hearts; open-air life for lung 
trouble, exercise for stomachic and intestinal dis- 
orders. And if you have an organic disease, the 
modern physician will often tell you that medicine 
(drugs) is merely an alleviation, and that the 
cure lies in your ability to change some detail in 
your mode of living. And to the eternal credit 
of the profession, be it said that practically every 
doctor will show you the method to correct your 
own trouble, even if he makes you so healthy that 
he loses you as a patient. A physician who fails 
to advise you to take moderate exercise is just 
as rare as the dentist who tells you that you need 
not clean your teeth. 



People have such odd ideas about abdominal 
fat. They seem to think that a big paunch is all 
external fat ; that is fat interlarding and overlying 
the abdominal muscles. Such external fat is al- 



ON RETAINING YOUTH. 203 

most invariably accompanied by internal fat — 
fatty tissue that surrounds and clogs up the 
organs, that interferes with the free travel of the 
diaphragm and which may eventually invade and 
degenerate some of the organs themselves. 

And anything that deteriorates one organ 
shortens life. The internal economy is so won- 
derful that the heart, for instance, may take up 
part of the work of an inert liver or kidney, but 
that throws an undue strain on the heart which 
in turn affects it. 

Abdominal fat is caused just as much by 
faulty carriage as by overfeeding and lack of 
exercise. A man who holds his shoulders too 
far back and protrudes his abdomen, will almost 
surely accumulate a paunch. The bigger the 
paunch becomes, the farther he has to lean back 
to balance it, so that the paunch continually 
augments. 

A man with a moderate corporation can re- 
duce it in a few weeks by correct walking, and 
the few special exercises for abdominal muscles 
given in Chapter VII. Thereafter, correct stand- 
ing and walking will keep him from accumulating 
fat in the waist region. 



204 THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM. 

When the trunk is held naturally every organ 
is in proper place and is unimpeded in its 
functions. 

Further than that, you cannot carry the trunk 
properly without developing the muscles of the 
lower back; and when these muscles are well 
developed, they have an incredible effect in pro- 
moting the activity and continued health of cer- 
tain glands which have a controlling influence 
over a man's vitality and vigor. 

This one effect alone would make the correct 
posture worth while. 



Have you noticed how often people speak of 
a great or successful man as being "erect and vig- 
orous, at the age of 70." The "erectness" has a 
great deal to do with the vigor and the success. 

The few weeks spent in creating the habit of 
holding the body properly erect will pay divi- 
dends in the way of increased years and vigor. 

So, my advice is: Even if you are old, 
persistently walk and stand like a young man, 
and you will be surprised how soon you will 
approximate the figure and, in a measure, the 
vitality of your own youth. 



SOME MEDICAL AND PERSONAL COMMENTS 
ON THE CHECKLEY SYSTEM AND "A 
NATURAL METHOD OF PHYSICAL TRAINING" 

Original Theories 
Dr. Jos. Rodes Buchanan in the Anthropologist 
His methods and discoveries differ so widely from 
everything that has been done in that direction hereto- 
fore, and are indeed so marvelous, as to suggest that 
something more than the common reasoning power of 
man may have guided him as by intuition to doctrines 
so novel, of which there has never been a hint in any 
production of physicians, artists, hygienists or philoso- 
phers heretofore. 

A Natural and Reasonable System 
Science 
The method of training advocated and taught in this 
little volume appeals at once to the good sense of the 
reader. It requires no machinery or apparatus of any 
kind, except, of course, the bones and muscles of the 
person training, and it may be taken up and pursued at 
any time and in any place, either with or without an 
instructor. The aim is not to produce champion rowers 
or boxers or sprinters, nor even to develop good "all- 
round" athletes, but to do for the body what education 
does for the mind. The aim is to put the body into the 
best possible condition for doing the work it has to do, 
and to keep it in that condition. The author believes 
that there is more "straining" than "training" in some 



206 COMMENTS. 

of the popular systems of physical training practiced in 
and out of the college gymnasium, and his method de- 
parts radically from those systems in many respects. 
But we find nothing in it that physicians could take 
exception to in the case of any person physically sound. 
The book is fully illustrated, many of the engravings 
being made from instantaneous photographs of the 
author in the different positions assumed in the course 
of training. 

A Natural System 

New York Medical Times 

A young man educated as an engineer, and accus- 
tomed to study in his profession the harmony of parts, 
applies the principles thus obtained to the careful study 
of the most perfect machine in the world, the human 
body, and finds, he thinks, a solution of the question 
which the scientist and philosopher in the past had so 
long in vain tried to solve. The essence of Mr. Check- 
ley's system is that the ordinary movements of everyday 
life, breathing, walking, stooping, etc., can be made to 
develop the body so perfectly in the routine course of 
everyday action, not only sufficient to prevent any un- 
natural and unhuman increase of size, but also to bring 
the body up to a full natural development, with all that 
vigor and beauty of motion characterized by the har- 
monious action of all the organs. In truth, there can 
be no proper training that does not educate the whole 
system of the man. Mr. Checkley's ideas are particu- 
larly applicable to women, not only in her movements, 
but especially in her dress, which, he claims, if properly 
carried out, will not only give a perfect form, but do 
away with a large portion of those pelvic diseases to 
relieve which a very large class of specialists ara 
acquiring not only professional reputation but wealth. 



COMMENTS. 207 

The system of Mr. Checkley promises, by the proper 
control of all the organs, much better results than can 
be obtained by the exclusion of different kinds of food. 
The system in its healthy condition, with each muscle 
and bone and tissue doing its proper work, takes up 
only the necessary ingredients from the food to accom- 
plish its purpose, getting rid of the rest in the form of 
excrementitious material. 

Safest, Wisest, Most Practical Method 

From Annals of Hygiene 

We are always heartily in sympathy with any system 
of physical culture that aims to accomplish results with- 
out the use of apparatus. Of course, all appliances are 
not to be condemned, but we, quite firmly, hold that 
they are unnecessary. A little volume of "Physical 
Training," by Edwin Checkley, has recently fallen into 
our hands, and we have been so very favorably im- 
pressed with its teachings that we can and do strongly 
commend its perusal to all the readers of The Annals. 
It is a very happy thought of Mr. Checkley 's, and pre- 
eminently correct, when he holds that "a man or woman 
should get good health and sufficient strength and per- 
fection of form in the ordinary activities of life, if 
those activities, however meagre, are carried on in 
obedience to right laws." Mr. Checkley's instructions 
about "breathing" are particularly good. While we are 
not entirely in accord with the author's commendation 
of running, which we do not think a healthy or desir- 
able form of exercise, with this one exception we can 
heartily recommend his book as containing about the 
safest, wisest, most physiological and most practical 
exposition of the subject of physical culture that we 
have yet encountered. 



208 COMMENTS. 

Not for Athletics but for Health 

Medical Review 

This is just what it is claimed to be, a natural method 

of physical training. It is written by a man who knows 

his business. It is written in a pleasing style, and is so 

written that "one who runs may read" 

Well Worthy of Study 
New York Medical Times 
Mr. Checkley's investigations have certainly a scien- 
tific basis, and are well worthy of that careful inquiry 
and experiment which every physician can carry out 
himself. Bismarck and others keep down the flesh by 
a careful attention to diet, but the same plan pursued 
by others is a complete failure. A careful study of the 
use of every organ and the proper carriage of the 
body, so that each organ performs its proper function 
and all work in harmony, it would seem, might be a 
much moref scientific and pleasant solution of the ques- 
tion than the mere study of the nature and character of 
foods. 

Will Draw Everybody's Attention 

Prof, Persifor Frazer, D. S., in Journal of the Franklin 

Institute 

The writer of this small octavo of 224 pages comes 
before the public like Francis Galton, without any title 
from the school of Medicine, and, like Francis Galton, 
he displays a familiarity with the structure and func- 
tions of the body which adds very much to the charm 
and the convincing force of his book. He has many 
points which favor him before the public, such as an 
earnest and withal a very clear and pleasant style; a 
subject which interests everybody and will draw every- 
body's attention so soon as the writer inspires confi- 



COMMENTS. 209 

dence in his knowledge of the subject, which Mr. 
Checkley very shortly does. Then the means which he 
employs are simple and natural, and being always at 
hand, leave the would-be physical reformer no excuse 
for missing his exercise. The theory put forth by Mr. 
Checkley is not new but it is very strongly stated. It 
is, in short, that with the attention called to such points 
as the correct carriage of the body, the proper manner 
of breathing, and the repetition, morning and evening, 
for twenty minutes or so, of such motions as bring 
into play the muscles on which the daily routine makes 
no demand, not only the general health and power of 
sleep are improved, but also the physical strength is 
greatly increased, the tendency to corpulence checked, 
and its unpleasant consequences avoided. 

Even were there no examples of the practical success 
of this system its simplicity and reasonableness would 
take one captive, but the writer has seen a practicable 
proof of its beneficent working on a short and very 
fleshy man, whose pursuits were so little favorable to 
the maintenance of the well-proportioned frame, and 
whose occupations were so exacting and numerous that 
he had fallen into that bourne of rotundity and flaccid 
muscles from which few can return. For years he had 
seriously projected correcting this evil by gymnasium 
exercise, but had never "found the time," and was 
rapidly tending toward the outline of a human sphere. 
Finally, this little book fell into his hands, and he made 
a determined effort to follow its precepts. 

Without subjecting himself to any unusual depriva- 
tion of diet, he began rapidly to reduce his excessive 
corpulence, until in three weeks his trunk had changed 
from the appearance of a pear to that of a barrel, his 
waist measure had diminished from forty-one inches to 
thirty-six and one-half, while his chest measure had 



2IO COMMENTS. 

increased. A neck began to be visible; short breath 
became a nightmare of the past, and almost without 
effort he assumes the proportions of an athlete. 

It may well be that all will not have the strength of 
will to carry out this regimen so faithfully, and will 
not so soon reap their reward; but that it will prove 
beneficial to all is certain. The advice it contains as to 
the physical training of women and children is timely 
and admirable. 

The writer is not acquainted with any treatise on the 
art of preserving health and comfort, or of regaining 
them when lost, by natural and inexpensive means, 
which is so sensible, so practical and so clear as this 
little book, which is heartily recommended to the public. 

Will Bear Good Fruit 
William Blaikie, Author of "How to Get Strong" 
So easy to learn, and so quick in bearing results of a 
kind gratifying and helpful to the pupil, that you cannot 
fail to soon have an army of followers. If the habit 
of deep, slow breathing which you urge can only 
become general it will add many per cent, to our vital- 
ity and staying powers as a nation; while the correct 
carriage of the body, as taught by you, will be a boon 
especially to young women who wish to be graceful 
which can hardly be overestimated. 



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